Master Card Display Card Heralds A New Way To Pay
Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Today, there’s even more proof that we are truly living in the future. We’ve already become so accustomed to earning and spending money like proverbial credits in an arcade. Many never see a paycheck and instead have their wages transferred electronically via direct deposit. Once there, it’s likely the money is never seen again, what with online payments and credit/debit cards.
Smartphones have even become wallets and scanners: Apple Store customers can scan an item with their iPhones, punch in their Apple ID password, and walk out of the store unmolested.
It’s when the future begins to turn this way, towards mobile payments and smartphone scanners, that credit card companies begin to fret. Today, Master Card announced a new card which is set to live in the digital world and, of course, comes with an LCD screen and keyboard.
The Display Card by Master Card works like other credit cards, but also facilitates one-time password (OTP) authentication.
As an extra added step for security, many banks offer these OTPs for high-risk payments or for the customer who simply wants an extra measure of precaution. These OTPs are generated anew for each individual purchase and discarded immediately, meaning the password used to pay an electric bill isn’t the same password used to buy that new DVD. These OTPs can also be used to perform other tasks on the banking website, such as changing account info, transferring money and more.
The Master Card Display Card is aimed at taking advantage of these OTPs, allowing card holders to generate these passwords with the touch-screen keyboard and display them on the embedded LCD. There’s even an on/off button, all packed into a package the size of, well, a credit card.
The current version of the Display Card is only used to create the OTPs, but Master Card says in their press release that future versions of the card could display the available credit balance, loyalty and reward points and even recent transactions.
According to V. Subba, Regional Head of Retail Banking Products in Singapore and Southeast Asia, the idea for such a card came by trying to protect those customers in Singapore who use multiple banks.
“We brainstormed on ways to make it convenient and yet secure for customers. The question was: instead of sending customers another bulky token, could we replace something which already exists in the customer’s wallet? That was when credit, debit and ATM cards, immediately came to mind,” said Subba in the Master Card press release.
These Display Cards, manufactured by NagraID Security, are being deployed all over the world, though Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore will see the bulk of these futuristic cards. Many Master Cards, such as Master Card Platinum and Master Card Super Salary debit cards, will now be issued as Display Cards in Singapore.
Cyril Lalo, CEO of NagraID, was also excited for the launch of these cards, saying the company expects to deploy many of these smart pieces of plastic.
“Earlier this year NagraID Security ramped up production capacity by investing heavily in equipment and human resources in order to meet the growing demand for Display Cards,” said Lalo in the press release. “The increased throughput, combined with the experience acquired during the past 2 years from the close collaboration with MasterCard and Gemalto, enabled the implementation and deployment of this scale in a record-breaking timeframe.”
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2012-11-10 01:00:07
Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112728849/master-card-introduces-display-card-110912/
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