The credit card book: history and theory of digital payment

Cash or by card? Or with an app or blockchain? Sebastian Gießmann's fast-paced history of the credit card takes us into the hidden worlds of digital payment. It shows for the first time how our digital present began in North America with a small plastic card, what magnetic strips and chips actually mean and how Europe was once able to become a leader in digital payments. Gießmann elegantly leads the reader into the secretive inner world of banks, credit card organizations and computerized high-tech security. He pays tribute to the everyday nature of the transaction as well as the ludicrous true crimes of credit card fraud.

The credit card book examines the truth behind the advertising slogans, company logos and television commercials. How we pay is political. Social participation and difference, consumption, financial surveillance, the future of cash: nothing less is at stake in digital payment than our economic identity.

Published in March 2026 by the Berlin cultural publisher Kadmos. A

reading sample
can be viewed on the publisher's website. There are threads about the book on Mastodon
and Bluesky.