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Sex Pistols Credit Cards Are Proof That Punk Is Dead

It’s part of Virgin’s “quest to shake up U.K. banking.”

What kind of credit do you think Sid Vicious had back in 1977? His heroin dealer likely ran a cash-only operation, so we’re guessing it wasn’t so good. But that doesn’t matter — MasterCard has approved the Sex Pistols’ iconic artwork to adorn a pair of new credit cards. A little awkward at face value, right?

But there’s more to it than that. The cards come from Virgin Money’s new collection. Virgin Money is a bank backed by Sir Richard Branson, who headed Virgin Records when it signed the band in 1977. Virgin Money director of cards Michele Greene told The Guardian,  “In launching these cards, we wanted to celebrate Virgin’s heritage and difference. The Sex Pistols challenged convention and the established ways of thinking — just as we are doing today in our quest to shake up U.K. banking.”

 

In a press release, Virgin Money added that it was, “time for consumers to put a little bit of rebellion in their pocket.”

Seriously though — if you whip out some Sex Pistols plastic, we can’t promise you’ll come off as rebellious.

Pistols frontman John Lydon has defended hawking products like Country Life Butter before (“anything I can do to help British industry is fine by me”) so hey, who are we to judge?

If you’re keeping score, most of the cards come with a representative interest rate of 18.9 percent APR.