Display Cards and Mobile Wallets

Since I first wrote about Display Cards in this column in June 2011, the technology has been enthusiastically embraced by banks and their customers all over the world. Last year Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore started issuing payment cards with a built-in LCD display and touch-sensitive buttons for generating one-time-passwords (OTPs). ABSA Bank in South Africa has launched a similar, single-button Display Card for authenticating higher-risk transactions, which also features a combination of credit and debit payment and contactless functionality. This follows on from Banca Monte Paschi Belgio in Begium which late last year launched the “PaschiCombo Card” with similar functionality. In this case, the OTP is concatenated with a secret PIN to give a 3D Secure code for strong, two-factor authentication of e-banking and e-commerce transactions.

All of these are MasterCard cards and all use technology developed by NagraID Security. This company’s website now boasts an even more powerful product, a “2nd Generation MasterCard Display Card” where each of the 10 touch-sensitive buttons on the card’s keyboard is associated with a different function, including two types of PIN-protected OTP, and display of debit balance, available credit, prepaid funds remaining, reward points, transaction history, alerts and more.

Intriguingly, the functionality of these more sophisticated Display Card products is beginning to approach that of the Digital or Mobile Wallet products I covered in this column in June 2012. As we have seen, the technology is already being used to display account balances, available credit, last transactions and so on, and Multi-Payment Display Cards give cardholders the core “wallet” capability of choosing which card to pay with. Arguably the security features of an Authentication Display Card for online banking or shopping are much stronger than an equivalent Mobile Wallet. Dual interface Display Cards have the same contactless capability as mobile POS payments via NFC. And it will surely only be a matter of time before banks start issuing Display Cards with sophisticated chip-based loyalty applications, or the ability to download and store coupons or tickets, or even to receive marketing messages from a bank or co-branding partner. But where a Display Card “wallet” product really scores over an equivalent mobile phone solution is that it can be used, now, at over 22 million terminals worldwide for payment at the POS, not just at the few which are enabled with NFC or QR codes!

Perhaps there is an opportunity for synergy between these two types of products. I’ve written before about the security limitations of Mobile Wallets when used for higher value mobile commerce or mobile banking transactions. Strong, two-factor authentication using an OTP generated by a Display Card may be the solution to such concerns.

Nick Collin, Banking Automation Bulletin, March 2013