NextGen Credit Card adds extra level of security

There are people out there who daren’t set foot into an e-store for fear that someone will swipe their credit card details and go on a shopping spree, and no amount of padlock icons will persuade them.  Perhaps they have a point, although it’s more likely that your card details will be “borrowed” while you’re offline; it’s distressingly easy for someone copy down your number and do some shopping of their own.  Jon Fortt has had some hands-on time with a new technology that might just put a stop to that, though: the ICT DisplayCard from Innovative Cart Technologies. 

At first it appears to be a bog-standard credit card, but if you look closely you’ll see a tiny display embedded into the top right-hand corner.  Squeezing the card causes it to generate a One Time Password (OTP) which is checked against an authenticating server.  No card, no OTP – it doesn’t matter if someone has your card number, your security code, even your PIN, because without the OTP they’ll come up short on the DisplayCard check.

The drawback?  Each card costs $11.40 and the manufacturers don’t see that decreasing any time soon.  Personally I’d be happy to pay a one-off charge for something that adds an extra, simple-to-use level of security to my finances.  It’d be reassuring to know that I have a part in making sure my money is safe and the transactions I complete aren’t solely safeguarded by some distant computer.

InCard Technologies [via The Utility Belt]