Word: citicards
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Citibank is still innovating, currently most aggressively in electronic banking-a field that gives promise of eventually creating a "checkless society," in which funds are switched easily and automatically from one account to another. While that prospect is far in the future, the bank's Citicard system is spurring some interesting changes right...
Basically, the system is composed of a central computer tied to myriad terminals. When an encoded Citicard is inserted into one of the terminals and buttons are pressed in a given order, the terminal can get various sorts of information from the central computer and quickly and cheaply perform a wide range of transactions. The card was introduced in late 1973 to speed up check cashing. Tellers popped customers' cards into terminals and instantly verified whether the account held enough money to cover the check...
...early 1974 "Citicard Centers" appeared. That is a fancy name for small terminals spotted about a bank branch; by inserting their Citicards, customers can get information about their accounts without bothering to walk up to a teller's window. Within months the terminals were set up in department stores and other retail outlets to enable bank customers to pay for their purchases with personal checks that the merchant could quickly verify. Today Citibank has terminals in more than 2,500 retail outlets, 120 of them across the state line in New Jersey, where it is legally forbidden to open...
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