Credit card revolution might stop fraud forever

isaac

April 24, 2015 5:00 PM

Oberthur Technologies, a French company, has developed a credit card with a constantly changing code on the back that is targeted at reducing fraud.

Oberthur Managing Director

There hasn’t been much innovation in the multi-billion dollar credit card industry for many years, but now Oberthur Technologies presents a prototype of a card that might make the world of online payments a bit safer.

Aimed for market entry in 2017, if the technology gets accepted by banks, the card features a mini ink screen powered by a phone like lithium-ion battery similar to a postage stamp size with a three year life span.

The card is only 0.76 millimeters thick with a computer chip that randomizes the CVV code every 40 or 60 minutes. This feature makes card of no use to card thieves, those who steal credit card numbers, expiration dates and the code on the back, as this combination of parameters can only be used for a couple of minutes.

The major drawback of this card is its manufacturing cost. While magnetic stripe cards go for about $0.20 and modern chip cards for $1.20, the dynamic CVV card from Oberthur Technologies is planned to sell for as high as $10 to $20 per item.

Every year millions of new cards are issued, so replacing 30 million credit cards worldwide will result in close to $300 million extra costs.

Oberthur has a lot of convincing to do if they have to sell the cards to banks; they would be leveraging on reduced fraud costs, customer support, and minimized headache to customers as major selling points.

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isaac