The French’s favorite means of payment will experience some changes.
They are in the wallets of almost all French people. Only a few, especially the oldest, still resist it. The bank card is the preferred means of payment in France: 14 billion transactions were recorded in 2022. This small rectangle with a chip, of which 76 million copies are in circulation in the country, will however be transformed in the months and years to come.
It won’t happen overnight, but the changes are already underway. Future bank cards that will be issued will no longer look the same, for two different reasons.
Customers of certain banks have already noticed this: their credit card no longer has the embossed numbers. A new feature applied to La Banque Populaire, Caisse d’Epargne, Crédit Mutuel, as well as all online banks, according to a census carried out by Money Vox. BNP, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole and LCL are still hostile to it.
The 16 digits of these new generation credit cards are also easier to read, no longer on a single line. The locations of the holder’s name, expiration date and cryptogram have also been revised. But these are not the only changes.
Few people pay attention to it, but on the back of each card there is a black stripe. It is not a simple decorative element but a functionality… that no one uses. This is a magnetic tape. At one time, the bank card was swiped on the side of the payment box. Some people still use it, particularly in America, but it has become marginal.
Thus, future Mastercard bank cards issued from 2024 in Europe, therefore in France, will no longer have a magnetic strip on the back. The payment system company had made the announcement from 2021. Requested by The Internet user, the American brand did not wish to comment on the deployment of its new cards. However, one thing is certain: “by 2033, no Mastercard credit and debit cards will have a magnetic strip.”
On the other hand, Visa, the other main issuer of bank cards, “does not plan to remove magnetic strips on payment cards in the near future”, as the brand indicated to The Internet user because “it enables transactions for people and businesses who may not yet have access to a smart card.”