Since the 1960s, plastic money has seen tremendous development in many countries, with the result that it is now intimately bound up with daily life. There are two main kinds of plastic money: debit cards and credit cards. By the 1980s, with the rapid advance and development of information technology, electronic money came into the picture. Although electronic money is highly diverse, two main categories are discernible: card types (including stored-value cards, smart cards, and electronic wallets) and software types (such as electronic cash and electronic checks).
