There are four main types of plastic, with a fifth, Smart Cards being in the experimental stage.

Bank Cards

• These are the traditional credit cards such as Visa and Mastercard

Charge Cards

• These cards don't offer credit, the full balance must be paid at the end of the month

• American Express and Diners Club are the big ones

• Charge cards are mainly issued to company employees to pay for expenses etc

Store Cards

• Boots, House of Fraser, Selfridges etc offer their own in-store credit cards

• These can only be used in the relevant stores and operate on the same principal as a credit card, pay the balance off in full at the end of the month or get charged interest

• Store cards also offer special loyalty points or other types of special offers when you purchase goods

Affinity Cards

• These are a Visa or Mastercard branded with a charity or your favourite football club etc

• Help the Aged have a credit card in which they receive £15 per every account opened and a further 25p out of every £100 spent

• However you are not dealing with the charity itself, rather the credit card company (say Visa) which kicks back a proportion of cash directly to the charity

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Smart Cards

• These are new and are currently being tested on a world wide basis

• A smart card is really 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 say you have 2 credit cards, 1 debit card and 3 different store cards, all of these can be programmed into the one smart card

• When you want to make a purchase you can decide which account to use

• One of the main reasons why companies like Smart Cards so much is that they have better fraud detection and elimination properties as well as being able to collect more data as the cards themselves can be programmed

• Smart Cards are definitely the future so look out for them over the coming years