• The most common type and usually issued by individual banks
• Most of them have the Visa or MasterCard stamp but some are issued by American Express and Diners Club (usually business cards)
• Traditional cards can come in many different formats including Platinum, Gold Cards, or customisable where you can add from a selection of different pictures and colours

• These offer no credit so the full balance must be paid within 2-3 weeks of receiving the monthly statement
• American Express and Diners Club are the main ones
• Charge Cards are mainly issued to company employees to pay for expenses which makes sense as the accountancy department can easily track the money

• Boots, House of Fraser, Selfridges and most of the other big brand shops all offer their own in-store credit cards
• These can be used just like a traditional credit card, ie they can be used for purchases outside the issuing store
• Their main selling point is they offer loyalty points or various special offers, although this only applies on goods purchased in the issuing store
• Store Cards are usually very bad value because of their high interest rates often 10% - 20% above what a good value traditional card offers
• Beware because Store Cards are often aggressively marketed and the person trying to sell one to you will normally be on a bonus

• These are either Visa or MasterCard branded Cards offered by a charity or perhaps your favourite football club
• For example, Help the Aged have a credit card where they receive £15 per every account opened and a further 25p out of every £100 spent by the customer
• However, you are not dealing with the charity itself, rather the credit card company which kicks back a proportion of cash direct to the charity
• Overall these are bad value cards mainly because of the high interest rate they charge
• See - What is an Affinity Credit Card

A smart card is a piece of plastic with a programmable chip instead of the normal magnetic strip. Because of the chip it can be many cards built into one. For example, if you have 3 credit cards and 1 debit card, a Smart card can program all of these on to the one card.

When you want to make a purchase you can decide which account to use. Banks are starting to like Smart Cards because they have better fraud detection.

Contactless Smart Cards

These are Cards which don't even need to be taken out of your pocket. The Card beams its information out which is picked up by a radio receiver, perhaps the till at Tesco's. But payment can only authorised by you via a PIN.

Some of the smart cards don't even need a PIN. Just wave the card over a touchpad and the financial transaction is done. For example, Barclaycard have introduced the OnePulse Card which can be preloaded with money and payment of up to £10 can be made at selected retailers.

See also

• Why we like and use these 3 Credit Cards