EMV Archives -

Transforming Ocean Waste into Payment Plastic

November 5, 2019

In response to rising consumer demand, card manufacturers and issuers are actively working to develop and provide more environmentally-conscious solutions to address the growing problem of plastic waste. The challenge for card manufacturers is in sourcing materials that are not only durable, but able to handle the complex security and technology requirements of today’s evolving payment standards, including both EMV® and contactless payment functionality.

One of the most exciting eco-friendlier alternatives to traditional first-use plastic is the use of recovered ocean-bound plastic, which addresses a serious environmental challenge by reducing the amount of plastic waste in ocean-bound areas, waterways and shorelines, while also meeting the demanding requirements of today’s diverse payment systems.

Recovered ocean-bound plastic comes in many conditions, shapes and forms, not all of which are suitable for use in card manufacturing. Plastic waste must first be converted back into a commercially viable form, such as flakes. Once converted, the recovered plastic can be used in a wide array of consumer and commercial products in place of first-use plastic.

Recovered ocean-bound plastics are already being used in several consumer applications, like shoes, eyeglass frames, buttons, and zipper pulls and this versatile material presents great opportunities in the payment card arena. Roughly six billion payment cards are manufactured each year, the vast majority of which use virgin PVC (polyvinyl chloride) for the card body construction. Incorporating recovered ocean-bound plastic into payment card construction can help divert a meaningful level of plastic waste from entering our oceans.

To meet this need, CPI has introduced Second Wave^®, payment cards with cores made with recovered ocean-bound plastic. Second Wave^® offers the opportunity to make a difference in the effort to reduce the proliferation of first-use plastic, divert plastic waste from entering in the oceans and better serve a growing market of environmentally-conscious consumers.

CPI estimates that for every one million Second Wave^® payment cards produced, over one ton of plastic will be diverted from entering the world’s oceans, waterways and shorelines.

↪ CLICK TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SECOND WAVE

The Promise of Metal: Capitalizing on First Impressions

March 14, 2019

Metal cards have caught the eye of consumers in recent years. A certain segment of cardholder craves the feelings of exclusivity, luxury, and sophistication that metal cards provide. Attracted by the prospect of adding new, affluent cardholders, many financial institutions are looking to add metal card options to their portfolios. But the higher costs involved in manufacturing metal cards is giving some issuers pause. Before you take the leap, it’s important to understand the key ingredients of a successful metal card program. In this post, we discuss the first of these important aspects: the look.

Heavy on design

Aside from the noticeable heft and recognizable click when a metal card meets a hard surface, the naturally rich, unique look of the materials is one of the most appealing aspects of these cards. In the past, cards created using alloys offered a more limited design palate. Today, innovations in manufacturing have produced fusions of metal and plastic, allowing issuers to combine many of the same treatments available on plastic with the weight and rigidity of a metal component.

Elaborate design and personalization features offer issuers an emerging world of possibility in metal. The key is to view metal as a starting point – a blank canvas on which to create an immersive, customized cardholder experience that fully reflects your brand. By leveraging distinctive design features like matte coatings, spot UV gloss, and bright color treatments, you can instill your cardholders with a sense of pride and exclusivity. Laser personalization completes the front or back of the card.

Metal Cards Have the Edge

Finally, the design elements for metal cards are completed with a distinctive edge. For encased cards, issuers can take advantage of colored-edge options to complement the design, allowing for a gleaming exposed edge from its spot at the top of the wallet. Differentiation at the edge can enhance an issuer’s brand identity as well as create a look that stands out.

For financial institutions to remain on the forefront of consumer taste and expectations, they should not only provide the products their cardholders demand but also anticipate their desires through continuous innovation. Disrupting the status quo through the expanding possibilities of a metal card can redefine cardholder preferences.

Building a metal card program with an experienced partner like CPI Card Group enables financial institutions to seamlessly integrate metal cards into their offerings through a team of dedicated client services and research and development specialists. Learn more about CPI Card Group’s encased metal cards. ↪ CLICK TO SEE ENCASED METAL CARDS

Back to Basics – Card Design

July 19, 2018

Cards are everywhere — relied on to purchase goods, grant access to buildings or memberships, earn brand loyalty points, discounts, and more. Companies can visually enhance cards to appeal to a wide audience, inspiring usage while creating a preferred, top-of-wallet experience. Card designers are able to create a product used routinely in everyday life and capture the vibe of brand, a company’s messaging, or reflection of their audience. However, the personnel most often charged with developing and approving card program designs, typically, are not the card designers. As a guide, below is a back-to-basics breakdown of an approach to the card design process.

Brainstorming
A creative brainstorming session is essential to the beginning of any card design. Take a look at what is inspiring and think about how to apply it to card design. The creative brainstorm can pull from a variety of items, such as the geometric pattern in the architecture on a building, the texture of a piece of metal, or the sparkle or shine of a car. This early stage in the process is the time to evaluate design trends and determine what should apply to your card design. Often, a mood board is created to narrow down concepts for the card design. A mood board is an arrangement of different inspiration points (photos, colors, and swatches). From there, you can see which elements work together and incorporate into the card design, and even, determine placement of these elements on the card.

Choosing materials
Once the creative direction is defined, it is time to move to material selection. Material selection influences the unique characteristics of a card, such as a colored or metal edge, added weight and rigidity, a reflective foil appearance, or a unique visual effect created by a color-shifting pigment or spot gloss. Material choices also create texture and can be used to highlight effects when the card is tilted in the light, while creating a tactile experience affecting how the card feels in the hand.

It is important to remember, however, the goal is to create a product crafted for both form and function – a valuable product that can bear significant importance to a cardholder. From premium metal cards to gift cards, to dual interface and technology cards, each card has a purpose and it is important for the design to complement its functionality while resonating with the user. For example, if the card is intended to be a dual interface EMV payment card, choose materials that maintain the integrity and functionality of the technology. Ultimately, the card needs to be built from the correct materials to meet International Standards Organization (ISO) specifications and brand association guidelines to ensure it can swipe, dip, scan and wave as intended.

Manufacturing
As material selections are determined and the card moves into manufacturing, this is where it all comes together. Manufacturing decisions should be made with the mindset of ensuring that a card can be produced successfully for a reasonable cost. For instance, once the card exists, how will it be customized for the end user? Using a supplier that can produce cards and personalize them is a major advantage. However, in the case where a card is manufactured separately from the personalization bureau, the two entities will have to work together to manufacture a final product.

If personalization is required, this is the time to decide on the elements that make each card unique to the individual cardholder. If there is a cardholder name, will that name be embossed, flat, or laser printed? Perhaps the designer prepared for one of the new trends such as vertical cards or personalization on the back. This is a great opportunity to “expand the canvas” of the card to include custom carriers and materials that carry the design through, as well.

Delivery
Outside of the card itself, considerations need to be made about how the card will reach the cardholder. What sort of packaging will it have? Will it go through automated processes to fit into a package, mailer or envelope, or does the card need to be securely displayed in a retail setting? The only limit to packaging options are imagination and budget. Truly high-end experiences can be created for special cardholders with hand-packaged boxes, cartons and priority delivery.

Reception
Card design does not end with the graphics; the card is a product where materials and craftsmanship are important to the success of the end product. The experience of receiving a card should be exciting and inspire the end user to use the card again and again. This is true regardless of whether the card is received via mail from a financial institution, issued instantly, or purchased from a retail outlet as a prepaid or gift card. A recipient who is delighted by the way their card looks and performs benefits from the time and attention applied to the design, and that happy experience becomes a reflection of the brand, as well.

Developing a card can feel like a lot of pressure for those charged with the design. However, if the project is approached with the steps from initial creative brainstorming, to material selection, manufacturability and distribution, ultimately there will be a fully functioning, beautiful, and hopefully, valued card product in the cardholder’s hands.

↪ CLICK TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CARD PRODUCTION

Back to Basics – Dual Interface

June 20, 2018

We get many questions from people about dual interface cards and what happens during a transaction, such as, “When you tap a dual interface card, what is actually happening?” I was asked to go back-to-basics and reveal what happens behind the scenes of a dual interface tap or wave. What if I were to tell you by the time a dual interface card is tapped, all the information between card and reader has already been exchanged? The End. Well, that may make for the shortest blogging career on record, so instead let us take some time to examine what happens during the time a customer is reaching out to make a contactless payment.

Starting from the perspective of the payment terminal, the common card reader in the grocery store checkout line is operating at or near a radio frequency of 13.56MHz. Considered “high frequency,” 13.56MHz compares to an amateur ham-radio operation; higher than AM radio waves, but not as high as FM radio or television broadcasts. When activated, the card reader will produce an alternating magnetic radio field, looking to establish contact with a payment object. “Payment objects” include a variety of devices such as phones, watches, cards or other technologies with payment data; but for now, we’ll focus on cards. Before the data can be received, the card reader has to do three things: establish contact with the card, open a secure communication channel, and then negotiate the communication speed with the card. Finally, the terminal finds the EMV application on the chip and starts reading the data tags to get directions for handling the transaction.

Let us flip our perspective to focus on what is happening with cards during a payment transaction. Cards may also be referred to as “proximity cards,” which are smart cards that become active when in proximity to a card reader, and can be either pure contactless or dual interface. These cards are designed to meet ISO standards. Proximity cards have an embedded antenna that functions at or near a frequency of 13.56 MHz. When a card approaches the radio field of a reader, energy from the reader crosses the antenna in the card and generates a current flow. Usually the needed power level is achieved when the card is within 4 cm of the reader, which causes the chip to come alive to transmit its data.

As the cardholder extends the card towards the terminal, the radio frequency emitted from the reader inductively couples to the antenna in the card and turns on the chip. The card is a passive receiver of energy, harvesting what is needed for the chip with no additional power source required from the card itself. Now the chip is on and ready to share its stored information.

The card waits for the first command from the terminal, and then responds with an “answer.” The terminal finds the EMV application and reads the data tags on the chip to get directions for handling the transaction. Data tags are bits of accountholder information encrypted and securely stored on the EMV chip. Some you would expect, such as cardholder name, expiration date of the card, or primary account number, and others are more obscure, as in “card risk management data object list” (there are two of those!). A complete list can feature more than 30 separate data tags.

So far, the chip has come alive and is transmitting its data tags to the terminal – all in about a half of a second. The cardholder is still moving the card towards the terminal at this point. The reader will use information from the card to determine if the card should be declined, if it should go online to get authorization from the core processor, or if it can be accepted as an offline transaction. If it requires online authorization, an Authorization Request Cryptogram (ARQC) will be sent to the host system for final card validation. The host (core processor) calculates an Authorization Response Cryptogram (ARPC) and sends it back to validate the issuer.

After these two additional snippets of data are exchanged, the card is close enough for a physical tap. As the light flashes and the card reader emits a beep, the cardholder can safely return the card to their wallet because even as they withdraw the card, the transaction is already complete. The entire transaction process of waving the dual interface card usually takes around one second in real time.

↪ CLICK TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CARD PRODUCTION