Citi Unveils Second Gen Credit Cards

Credit cards today are just chucks of plastic that have nothing but a magnetic strip in most cases. Some of the card have a small smart chip on them or perhaps even a picture of the owner to prevent fraud. For the most part the credit card is just the plastic thing we have been using for years now.

Citi has unveiled what the future of credit cards will look like and it lacks the little screen and keypad that MasterCard sees in the future of its credit cards. The Citi card does have a couple buttons on the front though and the idea is to let the user choose at the point of sale with each purchase if they want to buy using rewards or just use straight credit.

The front of the card has a little light that glows to show what the card is set to at any given time. There are a pair of little buttons with the setting you want accessed by a press. That would mean if you have say $100 in rewards points on the card and want to buy something for $80 you can just use your points right there to buy. That is a very cool idea. I know someone who uses a rewards card for everything and each year they get over a grand in rewards that comes in the form of a check. Just using them straight from the card would be much easier.