16-02-2005, 04:47 AM
You are right. It was
American Express who started it. Even I knew it to be Amex and not Thomas Cook. So checked wikipedia and here is what they have to tell about it.
American Express was founded in 1850 by Henry Wells, William Fargo, and John Butterfield as an express business. In 1882, American Express launched its money order business to compete with the US Post Office's money orders. This product quickly spread to Europe where no such financial product existed. Sometime between 1888 and 1890, J. C. Fargo took a trip to Europe and returned frustrated and infuriated. Despite the fact that he was president of American Express and that he carried with him traditional letters of credit, he found it difficult to obtain cash anywhere except in major cities. Mr. Fargo went to Marcellus Flemming Berry and asked him to create a better solution than the traditional letter of credit. Mr. Berry created the American Express Travelers Cheque which was launched in 1891 in denominations of $10, $20, $50, and $100.The Travelers Cheque established American Express as a truly international company and in 1915 they announced the establishment of a Travel Department and soon established its first travel agencies.
On the other hand, the wikipedia entry for Thomas Cook does not even mention Travellers Cheques. So I assume Amex is the correct answer.
Deba
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Thanks a Lot for the information.
I had a quiz wherein the same q was asked and I replied it as AMEX and the answer told was Thomas Cook.
To my surprise many of them mentioned the same.
Anyways thanks for clarifying.
Regards.
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