Money cards and identity cards: De-vicing consumer credit in post-war Sweden

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article has a twofold ambition. First, exploring the peculiar Swedish case, it contributes to the international history of credit cards dominated by the American narrative. Early adaptation of new banking technologies was in Sweden combined with negative general attitudes towards consumer credit. Although introduced early in a European comparison, credit cards needed to be reconceptualised, reshaped, and renamed to be accepted. Second, the paper’s contribution to the study of financial products and their intertwining with values, affects, and the rhythm of the everyday is that it reveals the role of de-vicing which refers to the strategies conducted by card issuers while dealing with the moral resistance. Marketers exploited the non-credit properties of the card in order to spread its use into the everyday practices of consumers. The card itself was turned into a device for de-vicing – destigmatising – consumer credit. By looking at the technical and cultural arrangements built into the card, I unpack the workings of two de-vicing strategies that reconfigured cards (1) as modern money and (2) as membership/identity cards. The Swedish example reveals how plastic cards were reshaped in the forcefield between money and identity and became instrumental in reorganising moralities of debt.