Time for an Exit

  As I looked over the card industry's healthy numbers for 2004 and the industry's prospects for 2005 early in January, I couldn't help but think about Dee Hock. As most of you know, Hock is probably the single most influential person in the history of the card business. In 1970 he founded what became the Visa payment network out of the primordial chaos of Bank of America's BankAmericard system.
  As vividly recounted in Joseph Nocera's 1994 gem, A Piece of the Action, BankAmericard by the late 1960s was on the verge of collapse because of cheating by franchisees to undercut competitors, huge operational tasks that weren't getting done properly, and other problems. It was Hock who convinced BofA and its franchisees that the only way to save BankAmericard was to separate it from BofA and make it member-owned so that everyone had an incentive to play by the rules and profit from consumers' rapidly growing acceptance of credit cards. Hock's plan prevailed, and Visa went on to become the world's largest payment organization.
  The book also discussed Hock's vision of Visa as a new method of exchange, a payment system with the potential to displace cash and checks worldwide. Worries about the huge rise in U.S. consumer debt through credit cards for a long time obscured his message. But each passing year only confirms Hock's prophecy, though it certainly applies to MasterCard as well. Credit cards remain huge, of course, but debit is today's up-and-comer for the bank card associations (see our cover story on page 30). Then there are the fast-rising stored-value cards. And don't forget Internet payments.
  The Federal Reserve says card payments surpassed check payments in 2003. Dee Hock's insights about electronic money were ... right on the money.
  Unfortunately, I've never met Dee Hock. But with electronic payments evolving along his broad outline, I strongly believe after 15 years with Credit Card Management and its sister publications that the future of the card industry is bright indeed. And so is CCM's. Thus, in the spirit of moving on while the wind is at my back, with this issue I'm saying goodbye to my loyal readers in order to pursue my long-standing interest in urban planning. I'm taking a position with an industrial-development commission concerned with keeping a manufacturing area on Chicago's North Side a viable employment center. The area is gradually transforming from old-line manufacturing into a high-tech center of R&D and software companies. It's tough for older central cities to attract and retain jobs in today's suburbanized and globalized economy, so I'm looking forward to this new and very exciting challenge. CCM Publisher Andy Rowe soon will name a new editor from a field of several excellent candidates.
  I owe many thank yous: to the countless industry people who taught me the ins and outs of card payments and provided information for our stories, to my fellow journalists and publishers, past and present, in Chicago, and to my art and production colleagues in New York. So thanks to all of you, and good luck in your endeavors.