Credit and debit cards have added the ease and flexibility in carrying the financial transactions i.e. both online and offline. These cards have liberated the consumers from carrying cash and have fully eliminated the risk of losing it. Hence the users have given a pet name to these cards by calling them ‘plastic money.’ There is wonder that these cards have been adopted by billions of people all over the world and today we might find a person with iPod but not without a credit or debit card.
The transaction would begin by swiping the card at any stores and completes whence the stores gets the credit. The small magnetic strip located on the back of the card is the one that holds the information about the card, the issuing bank, card holder’s name, account no. etc. Every card is protected by a PIN (Personal Identification Number) which has to be punched by the card holder into the swiping machine to authorize the transaction.
As the volume of credit and debit cards increased by manifold, there was a need for the companies for a dedicated player that can handle the financial transactions. ACH Origination is such an exciting payment solution that allows any business member to originate electronic transactions. In absence of this service, the companies that accept payments via debit and credit cards were pressed hard to make heavy investments in creating the necessary infrastructure to handle these transactions. ACH Origination handles varieties of card transactions in batch mode. These transactions include B2B, Direct debit, Direct deposit, E-Commerce payments etc.
The Next Generation Swiping Technologies
Technology is not a lake to live with stagnated water but is like a river that always flows with fresh water and takes its own path. There is no technology in this world that has not undergone at least one enhancement since its inception.
Going by the same analogy of the river, the card swiping technology is always under constant improvisation and the researchers are evaluating different innovative methods. These new technologies when they go live into operation have the capability to change the entire landscape of card swiping.
The most talked about feature is the usage of smartphones as the swiping machines. The researchers and tech insiders of smart phone industry say that this could be hard to imagine but possible to implement soon. To give an example, Apple Inc recently rolled out its new iPhone model (called is iPhone 5S) with adding of the much speculated feature known as fingerprint scanner which not only offers security but also enables the users to carry out complex online transactions.
Industry observers have said that the fingerprint scanner of the new iPhone can be hailed as a ground breaking innovation in the mobile payment segment. It is a known fact that the present day credit cards have taken more than two decades to evolve and the same goes with the swiping technologies too. But now the new iPhone 5S and other such Android devices are causing a paradigm shift from plastic swipe to mobile tap. Thus undoubtedly the future of the card swiping is becoming smarter than anticipated.
Photo Credit: Flickr/Thomas Kohler
