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A credit card is part of a system of payments named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. It is a card entitling its holder to buy goods and services based on the holders promise to pay for these goods and services. ¹ The issuer of the card grants a line of credit to the consumer from which the user can borrow money for payment to a merchant or as a cash advance to the user.

A credit card is different from a charge card where a charge card requires the balance to be paid in full each month. In contrast credit cards allow the consumers to revolve their balance at the cost of having interest charged. Most credit cards are issued by local banks or credit unions and are the shape and size specified by the ISO/IEC 7810 standard as ID-1.