How Humans Have Paid For Things Thr

How Humans Have Paid For Things Throughout History
From barters to bytes, financial exchanges have evolved with civilization. Just a few centuries ago, mankind paid and bartered goods with slabs of meat and baskets of berries. In the digital age, we now have the convenience of virtual payments and a plethora of mobile payment options that allow us the freedom to pay for goods almost anywhere.
• Pre-history
BARTER  Exchanging goods and services for mutual benefit has existed pretty much from the beginning of time and is still used today throughout the world in place of money. Bartering was first recorded in Egypt.
• 10.000BC
COMMODITIES  The use of commodities as a unit of exchange is the oldest form of money known in history. Form of livestock (ie. cows, sheep, pigs, camels) were probably the first and most widespread commodities to be used, along with highly-valued items such as seeds, salt, tobacco, and tea.
• 1200BC
SHELL MONEY  Shell money is first used in China. Societies off the coast of the Pasific and Indian Oceans embrace cowrie shells as a popular currency.
• 1000BC
CRUDE METAL COINS  Coins made from base metals first appear in China. However, the metals re non-precious, making them difficult to use for more expensive purchases.
• 700BC
PRECIOUS METAL COINS  The first 'official' curency was minted by King Alyattes of Lydia in modern day Turkey and were made of electrum (a natural mixture of gold and silver). They were soon stamped with images of gods and emperors to distinguish them from forgeries.
• 118BC
LEATHER MONEY  1-foot-square pieces of white deerskin are used. This form of leather currency could be considered the first documented type of banknote.
• 1000
PAPER MONEY  Paper money first made its way into marketplaces a more 1.000 years ago during Tang Dinasty in China. Numismatics, scientist who study the history of money, believe that this was the byproduct of block printing.
• 1290  The travels of Marco Polo to China introduced the idea of paper money to Europeans.
Paper money was great for business because it could be mass produced without relying on raw metals like gold and silver.
• 1816
GOLD STANDARD  Gold was recognised as the standars of value in 1816 by England and 1900 by the United States. The gold standard ended with the great depression in the 1930’s when gold became devalued and inflation massively increased.

• 1950
CREDIT CARDS  Credit cards were first introduced in the US and Europe at the beginning of the 20th century for customers to make transactions internally within large companies or hotel chains. Their buying power was extended to other, external companies around 1940.
• 1967
ATM  In 1967, the first ATM was installed in a Barclays Bank in London. Nevertheless, ATMs only became commonly used in the mid to late 80s.
• 1994
ONLINE SHOPPING  Though the official debut of online shopping is debated, one of the first documented Internet purchases was a pepperoni pizza with mushrooms and extra cheese from Pizza Hut.
• 1997
MOBILE PAYMENTS  M-commerce is introduced when Coca-Cola sets up several vending machines that can accept payment via text message.
With the mobile payment industry expected to reach $670 billion by 2015, an increase from $240 billion last year, the future is looking bright for m-commerce.