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The 1.8 billion credit and debit cards sitting in American wallets and purses are about to take a leap into the digital age, according to a report in the New York Times.
U.S. credit cards have relied on magnetic-stripe technology to store information since the 1970s, but soon these small, thin slabs of plastic will be engineered with batteries, embedded chips and buttons, the report said.
Citibank, for example, will next month begin testing a card that allow users to decide at a register whether they want to pay with rewards points or credit by pressing buttons that change the data imprinted on the card's magnetic stripe. Other issuers are testing cards that can double as credit and debit cards, cards with fraud protections baked right into the plastic that reduce the fraud associated with "skimming" (when thieves steal your account details using a small scanner), and cards that allow consumers to hold multiple accounts (corporate and personal, for example) on a single credit card.
These new technologies took nearly a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop and could be widely used by mid to late 2011, the paper said. Much of the world has already moved to using more advanced credit cards. In Europe, for example, consumers use cards that use a chip and PIN instead of a magnetic stripe. The United States appears unwilling to move away from magnetic stripes, the report notes, and so card companies are extending its life by adding new features that work with it.
But even with these new technologies, the plastic credit card's days could be numbered. It may eventually be rendered obsolete by technologies that turn cellphones into virtual wallets, the report says, noting that Visa, MasterCard and Apple are developing this technology, although it will probably take a while before any one technology becomes standard across all phones and merchants.
Here's more on the credit card changes from CNBC:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Leave a Comment:
In the future they will also embed micro chips in the human skin to identify your credit worthiness, under the guise of embedding important medical information.
I hope people don't abandon the elderly with these technologies. My parents could neither use nor understand these proposed changes. They can't even deal with the simplest cell phones, nor do they want cell phones. They can't read the small text.
Get them a Jitterbug. Huge numbers.
Just the other night I was thinking how, with all of these new technologies, if you put all this stuff on your phone then you are totally screwed if your phone is ever stolen. I'll stick to my cash as much as humanly possible, thank you.
The simple solution is to encrypt the data on your phone with an overall password to access the data. It will take a few seconds to punch in the password before you can see the data but it would be worth the trouble I think.
THIS is not cool....a LOT more people lose cell phones through theft and just general carelessness than those who lose wallets.....
This is crazy, I prefer plain old cash. leave these phones alone.
You could have megabytes of data on a cell phone and it is quite safe if it is encrypted and password protected.
This is bad.
hell, embed it into your finger. that number stays with you if you change banks or whatever. just swipe your finger everywhere nd dont use cash at all.
Oh no antichrist 666 !!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know you think that is a joke, but you are very close to the truth. How close, no one knows!
Good grief people! We've been using chipped cards for at least 2 or 3 years, just like Europe. What took the US banks so long??
I did a quick google search and found that chip & pin was invented in Britain in 2003. I don't think it's been in Canada for more than 2 years though.
When I was in the UK (military), my credit cards used chip and pin. I thought it was a great set up. They also don't get charged for using another banks ATMs there...yeah..that will happen here!! :D
Yeah the ATM Debt card is wonderful. How to get your checking account cleaned out quickly?
Young people do not carry money. I have been behind some of them in checkout lanes and they will swipe their debt card for a .98C soda.
If you do not have any money in the checking account I guess it doesn't matter anyway.
And so that $.98 soda is worth $1.58 when you take the banking charges into account for the transaction. Nobody ever accused these young people of being bright did they?
I do the same thing as those teenagers, my Credit Union checking account debit card requires 12 debit card transactions,(along with 1 direct deposit and signing up for E-Statement), to get 3.5% interest paid to my checking account monthly. So, early in the month, I make 12 transactions, for as little as possible, to meet that requirement. It doesn't cost ME anything more, the $1 McDonald's apple pie still costs me $1,(plus tax!) like everyone else, but I gain a benefit from it! Maybe those teenagers have the same type of account!
I would gladly contact a Credit Union and sign up with them with for a checking account, debit card, make a monthly direct deposit etc., in order to get the 3.5% monthly interest. Would you be so kind, and disclose more information?????
Thanks,
Sure, Look up Aspire Federal Credit Union on the internet. Or, you go to www.checkingfinder.com put in your zip code and they will give you a selection of banks and Credit Unions that offer free checking with interest. I picked Aspire but CheckingFinder has others. Try it. Aspire FCU is rated 5 stars by Bauerfinancial.com so that influenced me.
No, no-one is using a chip on any credit cards in the U.S. If we were, Identity Theft would not be an issue. To date, a chip cannot be copied by thieves. The banks are still using magnetic strip because it's CHEAP!!!! In view of this article, the changes they are talking about are a JOKE!!!! If you have spent any time in Europe, you notice that Identity theft does not exists with credit cards with chip in them!!!!!
The reason the banks don't want to upgrade their technology to that of Europe is too fold. 1. It would cost about 25 Billion dollars just to get started (estimated 1st year cost). 2. It would put Identity thieves out of business.
Hmm, a little cost up front to protect themselves from electronic thieves down the road... All it needs is a little planning and budgeting forethought.
Oh, but we are talking about American banks - the ones that either too small, go broke or needed to be bailed out. Planning and budgeting are mere afterthoughts!
Sometimes US Mastercard and Visa is not accepted in stores in ASIA. Why? No chip in the card and they will have to call the bank to validate your card transaction. Some merchants will flat out refuse it.
I find it very interesting and perplexing that American cc's haven't gone to chip/pin technology. All of my cards (2 cc, 1 bank card, 1 business cc) are chip/pin. Simple and easy and more secure. And no I'm not European - I'm a Canuck and proud of it.
I once had scurrilous charges on a old mag strip credit card after a stay at a hotel. I am guessing that the hotel didn't control their garbage and someone stole the numbers. I would rather be more secure with the new technology.
Worrying about big brother - then you should get yourself totally off the grid instead because anyone with a driver's license, mail box, or a job is already "tagged and bagged."
Having set up computer and firewall security for Smart Cards for companies and commuter rail services I can tell you that there is a lot of danger in these cards. The back end, where you add money to the card through a website, is not very secure. The Payment Card Industry (PCI) has rules about securing the backend computers that manage the cards. I have not been to any place to do a security review that had even 10% of the proper security in place. This includes government offices and retail establishments. I worry about when one of these cards shows up in my mail box.
<WL-1188611 No, no-one is using a chip on any credit cards in the U.S.>
McDonalds & CVS pharmacies in Florida have been using their new cash registers that read chips for well over 2 years they are called "RFID".
Other places you'll find the chips in USA are:
Also under experiment is new medical pills with RFID that sends signal to bracelet then to PC to email the doctor informing that the patient took the pill.
With biometric identification you won't need an implanted chip or a smart plastic card in your wallet. Facial recognition, retina or iris scan, voice ID and voice stress analysis, thumbprint or some other living part of your body, and you enter in a PIN. Voila! You've paid for your purchase, verified your participation, or paid your monthly bill. Smart cards, RFID or smart phones are just steps towards that future. Want to go further, why not just pay for your purchase with a neuro device to read your mind? (Oh, I can see the conspiracy theorists getting all worked-up over that possibility!)
I think we need a chip in our ass.
PIN numbers need to be required in the United States to reduce fraud.
Having been the victim of identity theft, I'm all for anything that increases protections.
Put it on my Iphone ... I'm lovin it !!!