Making smart cards smarter with e-paper
From healthcare and retail to security and FinTech, the smart card has become an integral part of our everyday lives. But, rather than just stopping at embedding a computer chip, integrating an e-paper display can offer huge benefits to businesses in terms of flexibility, improved security and wallet slimming.
For one, imagine designing a smart card display which not only shows information dynamically and in high-resolution but can also withstand known user behaviour like being put in a back pocket and sat on. This is compelling in several applications such as multi-function credit and bank cards and is continuing to gain traction across many industries including Financial Services.
The companies operating in this market are looking at super-thin e-paper displays which are the size of a credit card or smaller. This allows the same card to be used for multiple providers e.g. MasterCard, Visa, Amex etc., so that the cardholder doesn’t have to carry around multiple cards. This offers a great user experience without compromise as it’s essentially replicating what is currently on the traditional chip and pin bank card, but in a more convenient way.
To put this into context, and as mentioned in an earlier post, we’ve recently collaborated with BrilliantTS on Fuze to bring you a revolutionary multi-card technology that consolidates your entire wallet into one single card. The Fuze Card can store information of up to 30 cards at a time, so that may be credit cards, debit cards, membership cards or even gift cards, and allows users to toggle between them using our lightweight and durable e-paper displays. We like to see it as a lighter wallet, but with the same financial punch!
For many years now the smart card has been widely used across a number of industries and the market is expected to see continual growth, due to the increasing demand for secure and reliable payment transactions across the retail and financial services sectors. And, just by simply integrating e-paper displays into these smart cards, we can take this offering a step further and improve security, wallet slimming functionality and flexibility, all in one go.