Of course, in those days cheques were subject to bounce, and so the merchants took quite a bit of a risk in accepting a cheque. You would probably hand over some form of ID, but those poor students, with their bursary backstop accounts, often got into overdraft more than their limit, and those cheques bounced back. With credit cards, of course, payment was guaranteed, and that's where the zip-zap comes in. I'm sure Mr O'Connor remembers the awful, awful National Bank ad of that fellow in a three-piece suit dancing along the Parnell shopping mall, saying something like "Zip-zap, the only card you really need is National Bank Visa." And it was a very good card, but, of course, there was a whole pile of paper to be processed and the overhead of the Visa companies guaranteeing payment.