Credit Cards Online Information

It's a common ritual in a country with more than 500 million credit cards floating around. Customers and clerks swipe these pieces of plastic with magnetic stripes through readers that verify encoded information. With a little luck, the transaction is approved in seconds.

But the banking and credit- card industries are beginning to cut the last cord: They'll no longer require any physical contact with those swipers. In what could turn into a worldwide wireless revolution in payment methods, companies are rolling out credit cards with embedded radio frequency chips.

Customers simply hold up the cards - complete with their own minuscule antennae - and they're wirelessly linked to a new reader. There's nothing to sign either.

The idea is that transactions are faster and easier than with conventional credit cards, moving lines more rapidly and potentially changing the way we spend money. Variations on the same technology used by EZ Pass and ExxonMobil are hitting the banking world, allowing credit to compete even more with cash for convenience.

American Express already has rolled out a new Blue card with embedded chips and Chase over the past year has issued more than 1 million in Georgia and Colorado equipped with the technology that it calls blink. Expect the rest of the nation to follow.

In addition to such contact less cash transactions, these new cards also are equipped with a traditional magnetic stripe for a swiper. And that's something that's catching on at many nationwide chains.

At places like 7/11 and CVS and Walgreens, in many locations it's now as easy for card members as holding the card up to the reader and blinking their transaction, said Tom O'Donnell, a senior vice president at Chase. They take their goods and get their receipt, and they're on their way.

Analysts see these microchips in credit cards as a change that could affect millions and even billions of transactions.

It's a new payment form, a wireless payment, said Erik Michielsen, an analyst at ABI Research, in Oyster Bay. It increases merchant operation efficiency, raises average bills. Consumers have an easier, more fluid experience, which increases customer satisfaction. And it drives loyalty.

# posted by Medical Information : 4:23 AM