American Express credit card, 1963. Consumer credit cards, introduced in the 1950s, became common in … [+]
One thing we know about the future of fintech is that everything will be connected, even intermittently. The Internet of Things (IoT) will be a payment platform, that’s for sure. Even the cards. Here is an example. American Express
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Sail away
The sailboat effect refers to the impact of steamships in the Victorian era. While in the long run sailing ships were replaced by steamboats except for recreation, when steamboats first appeared they led to a final explosion of innovation in the world of sailing ships , which was then stimulated by the construction of large ships (for example, the famous “Cutty Sark” which can be seen in London). Perhaps we see this now in the world of smart cards, as they enter their final age before being overtaken by smartphones, the cloud, blockchains or whatever.
The KB Kookmin card is integrated with Samsung’s “SmartThings Find” platform so cardholders can connect the card to their Galaxy smartphone to check its location via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) at home or abroad and get notified when it is at a certain distance. Find smart things uses Bluetooth Low Energy and ultra wideband (BLE and UWB) to help people find a selection of Galaxy smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and earphones.
(You may not be familiar with UWB, but it is in the heart of a battle for the microlocation market. The new American Express card only uses BLE at the moment.)
History lesson.
Are smart cards with batteries and Bluetooth a trend? It’s not at all clear to me and the reason is of course that physical cards are on their way out. One of my issuers recently sent me a new premium card made from some sort of metal (I’m pretty sure it’s not real platinum, as platinum costs around £25 a gram and my card weighs 17g). The card is very beautiful and I’m sure its metallic nature will impress my guests when I place it on a restaurant table one day.
Except of course that will never happen.
It took me a few minutes to find the card so I could weigh it for this article. It turned out it was in a nightstand (I don’t know why) and not in the desk drawer where I thought I left it. I use the Platinum Card product all the time, of course, but I use it on my phone. My wife has her favorite rewards card loaded in her keychain (actually, she has her Curve card loaded in her keychain, and it’s currently pointing to her favorite rewards card). I have a prepaid debit card in the shape of a ceramic ring that I use when I’m in London for the day because I don’t want to take my phone out of my pocket when getting on the bus. And so on. Card products, but not cards.
Frankly, the writing on the wall is already pretty clear.
A recent survey conducted by Forbes Advisor found that 53% of Americans already use digital wallets more often than traditional payment methods and 51% say they would stop shopping with a merchant that doesn’t accept payments from digital wallets. Although, as you might expect, Gen Z is the most likely to adopt digital wallets as their primary payment method for shopping (91%), this trend is not limited to digital natives: Millennials and Generation X are also increasingly supportive. nearly two-thirds of respondents aged 27 to 42 and half of respondents aged 43 to 58 use them more than traditional methods.
According to American Bankers’ “Future of Payments” 2023 report, one in ten baby boomers have used an in-store digital wallet, compared to one in three millennials and “Generation Z.” Baby boomers are twice as likely to use a credit card and three times as likely to use checks. Credit cards dominate in-store and online purchases for Boomers (which makes sense, since 98% of Boomer-owned cards offer rewards), while Gen Z prefers debit cards and this Only when the transaction amount increases do they switch to credit cards and immediate purchase. -later (BNPL). However, in all cases, after prices, acceptance of the preferred payment choice is the second most important factor influencing purchasing choices.
Wave goodbye
I’ll be sad to see the cards disappear, of course. They were a big part of my professional life. I remember getting my first credit card (a Barclaycard) when I was in college and I remember getting an Amex Gold card while I was at work for a while. I remember the first experiments with smart cards (UKIS), the first chip and PIN cards (Amex Black), the move to contactless interfaces (Mastercard
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