By TechJunky
I always think the most sensible way to store all the loyalty cards, credit cards, vouchers and membership cards is to virtualize and store them in mobile applications; thus the proliferation of mobile wallet apps, like iOS Wallet, Key Ring, Google Wallet, Samsung Wallet, PassWallet etc., with the common objective of saving consumers the hassle to bring all the cards with them. While the concept is ideal, the challenge is always the implementation as it involves getting various parties, like merchants and banks, to jump onto the bandwagon; also means the merchants need to tweak their operational process and even tools (QR scanner, NFC reader etc.) to accommodate to the change.
However a new breed of card, all-in-one card, has appeared to offer alternative way for consumer to store if not all but most of their cards in just one plastic.....intriguing huh! Typically comes with minimum the magnetic stripe, there is a companion mobile app, which is used to manage the card, and also program it. You can read your cards into the app with a scanner that comes along with the package, then sync them (not all) to the cards. Following is a table comparing the capability of few of the cards out there (or about to be available) in US market.
However a new breed of card, all-in-one card, has appeared to offer alternative way for consumer to store if not all but most of their cards in just one plastic.....intriguing huh! Typically comes with minimum the magnetic stripe, there is a companion mobile app, which is used to manage the card, and also program it. You can read your cards into the app with a scanner that comes along with the package, then sync them (not all) to the cards. Following is a table comparing the capability of few of the cards out there (or about to be available) in US market.
PLASTC is clearly the winner in terms of the range of technologies that it can support; question is how many people can stomach the cost of it despite the convenience that it can provide? Also how reliable and accurate of those cards are?
Would you snap up those cards when they are available in your market?
By the way, at the time that I wrote this post, COIN has already been acquired by Fitbit, and discontinued their production of COIN 2.0.