The Last Days of the Credit Card

Once fed by burgeoning information technology, the credit-card industry is likely to succumb to further advances within the next few decades unless it adapts to the dynamics of economic activity in the 21st century. This essay is based on remarks delivered at the fall of 1998 meeting of the Law School Community of Visitors. Much of the information in this essay is discussed in greater detain in Payment Systems and Other Financial Transactions (Aspen, 1999), and in "Searching for Negotiability in Payment and Credit Systems," 44 UCLA Law Review 951 (1997), both by the same author.