Well, its not clever really, just Avesco Inc. who invented it. It’s a smart card with a display and buttons. This gives it lots of extra features. For example, us Londoners have oyster cards, which are smart cards. You put money on them via the Transport for London website, and then to pay for a ticket you just touch them onto a reader. Using a card like this, the display could show the balance on the card, and the buttons could be used to enter a password, to ensure that a stolen card would be useless. Apparently they will also be able to provide a One Time Password for use with ecommerce. This would greatly improve security as you would actually need the card to buy something, rather than the card number and some personal details of the person you intend to rip off.

I like clever ideas, and I think this definitely counts. Lets hope lots of financial services companies see the benefits and take this technology up.

[story and picture thanks to newlaunches.com]