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Despite the rise in NFC payment technologies, the humble magnetic and chip-and-pin credit card is still king, and that doesn’t look to be changing soon. But the credit card is evolving and it’s gaining a screen and battery.
The “Hidden” credit card from Dynamics Inc, is currently being shown off at CES, and is being tested by Citibank as a replacement for the traditional credit card right now.
It’s hailed as theft-proof because the actual credit card number changes every time you use it. That combined with the fact that the magnetic strip doesn’t store the number when the card is off, means it can’t be cloned with current methods. The credit card number isn’t visible until you enter a PIN code on the card itself either, as it uses a small LCD to display a six-digit section of the card number.
The card also generates a new security code (those three numbers on the back of the card) for each use, which should make it more secure for online transactions as well. Of course, where there’s a will there’s a way, so I doubt it’ll be long before thieves catch up with the technology, but it should stop any-old Tom, Dick or Harry pinching your card number and buying a ton of dodgy-sounding sex toys on your account.
Physically the card is the same size as any other credit or debit card and the battery will last you three years, which is miles longer than my credit cards last at any rate.
It sounds great on the face of it, but it may make subscribing for things a little bit harder; if the number changes every time you use it, you can’t just bung it in for a re-occurring subscription like Netflix. Kinks to be worked out, for sure, but considering I’ve had my card cloned three times in a year — I’m all for something that’ll stop the bastards being able to steal my credit card details again. [Daily Mail]
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Is this really more secure?
So, instead of having a PIN, you press a sequence of buttons – someone sees you entering this sequence and nicks the card from you, then you end up with as much of a problem as you would with a card at the moment.
It’s as well as your chip-and-pin code.
Plus this is more combatting cards being cloned, rather than stolen
If you had your card cloned three times in a year you really can’t blame the thieves. You’re clearly doing something stupid. Also, this would probably slow thefts down by all of a few months before they figured out a new way to exploit it, and that few months isn’t worth the inconvenience of having your card number constantly change. Imagine the productivity cost if every time someone wants to make an online purchase they have to dig their card out instead of typing in a memorised number. If we conservatively say it adds an extra 20 seconds per transaction, with the number of transactions every day that’s a craptonne of wasted time.
Compare that to the extra time it would take to ring up your bank and cancel your card after it had been cloned / stolen. Also take into account the hassle of getting payments refunded.
The number of people who have details stolen is minuscule compared to the number of online transactions. I guarantee you this would waste far more time than it saves, especially if you factor in research time, production, distribution, people becoming accustomed to it etc.
I narrowed it down to the use of a petrol station. Once I stopped going there, I stopped having my card cloned. It wasn’t a card I used online, so I know it had to have been cloned by a machine when I was paying for something. It also wasn’t a cash card, so it wasn’t an ATM. At any rate, that card would stop that, and save me a lot of hassle.