Your credit card is about to enter the 21st century

Posted in 'Personal Finance' by Barry Stamp

13 January 2012

New technology has enabled US credit card manufacturers Dynamics Inc to pack a computer and a three year battery inside a normal credit card.

The benefit to consumers is that this one card can then replace all cards in your wallet, as you can choose which card you want use from all that you have.

This izzy-wizzy card is already in use by Citibank in the US and trials are expected to commence in the UK later in 2012.

The card has chip & PIN protection, but is claimed to be even more secure than it’s solid plastic original because the card number disappears when the card is switched off, and the magnetic stripe on the back disabled when not in use.

It has not been revealed which UK card company will be first to trial the card, but most bets are on Barclaycard, which has a long history of being first to market.

The card will be more expensive for the credit card provider to cough up, but if the life of the card can be extended to 3 years to match the battery life, this may soften the blow of the cost of introducing new technology.

In 1986 Barclaycard broke the mould by changing the expiry dates on credit cards from a maximum of one year ahead to a longer, variable period based on the historic usage level of the card account. The average ‘life of the card’ was increased to over 18 months, though no-one knows yet what the average life of the new Dynamics card will be after being used to scrape ice off a windscreen.

One of the problems of carrying several cards in a purse or wallet is that if a thief steals just one card (and a thief always knows not to steal the one at the top), then you probably wouldn’t notice, and he or she would be free to use your card undetected for some considerable time.

For this reason you should only carry one or two cards – preferably two. Your main credit card should be for mainstream use, and the second credit card used only in petrol stations, restaurants and hotels, where the risk of credit card skimming (where the details of your card are cloned) is higher.

Then, checking your statements on the second card is really easy, as any abuse of your card jumps out at you and is not buried in amongst a list of everyday transactions.

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