Summary

The payment card has been in existence for many years. It started in the form of a card embossed with details of the cardholder (account number, name, expiration date), which could be used at a point of sale to purchase goods or services. The magnetic stripe was soon introduced as a means of holding more data than was possible by embossing alone. In the end, the smart card appeared.

Finally, from the anticrime perspective, there are a number of benefits to adopting the smart card. The card itself (or in conjunction with the terminal) can make decisions about whether or not a transaction can take place. Secret values can be stored on the card, which are not accessible to the outside world—allowing, for example, the card to check the cardholder’s PIN without having to go online to the card issuer’s host system. Also, there is the possibility of modifying the way the card works, while it is inserted in a point of sale terminal—even to the point of blocking the card from further transactions if it has been reported lost or stolen.