Word: credit-card
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...fight between Diners' Club, American Express and Carte Blanche for the nation's credit-card business, someone, and perhaps everyone, was bound to get hurt. Last week Carte Blanche admitted that it was hurt-and badly. For the fiscal year ending April 30, President Benno M. Bechhold estimated that the Hilton Credit Corp., which set up Carte Blanche, would lose $4,000,000. The reason: "Our unsatisfactory collection experience...
When Carte Blanche shouldered its way into the credit-card field two years ago, American Express and Diners' Club were already there. To get business, Carte Blanche agreed to take a lower (4%) share on the bill from restaurants and other firms that signed up with it, issued cards to some credit risks who would not have been okayed by the other companies. But the Hilton card never caught up with its competitors, nor came close to turning a profit...
American Express has fared less well. Though it has built up a list of 800,000 cardholders and 47,000 establishments, and handled $120 million in charges last year, the credit-card operation has yet to show a profit, though it hopes to be in the black by next year...
...success of ERMA encouraged Beise to find other jobs for computers. The Bank of America's huge traveler-check and credit-card business will soon be handled entirely by optical scanners and IBM 7070 computers. Other IBM computers even check on the efficiency of the branches. Beise gets a report each month that compares the amount of business done by a branch with the number of workers employed. He is satisfied that the equipment is paying off, estimates that it saves 30% on the cost of handling checks alone...
Kindergarten & Bookworms. All these machines are the products of a little-known firm called Farrington Manufacturing Co. of Needham Heights, Mass., an old-line display-box and credit-card maker that has taken a giant step into electronics. Tiny Farrington (1959 gross revenues: $10.9 million) has stolen a march on the nation's giant business machine makers. It is the only U.S. company with scanners in commercial operation, already has 31 reading voraciously for U.S. industry. This week Farrington announced that five insurance companies have ordered optical scanners to solve their premium-billing paperwork problems. Farrington's scanners...