The card-manufacturing startup Dynamics Inc. has developed payment cards that can change the information stored on magnetic stripes and erase the stripe data when a feature on the card is turned off.
The company demonstrated the two applications at the Demo Fall 2010 conference held this week in the company's hometown, Santa Clara, Calif.
In the first, a multiaccount card includes two buttons on the face, and next to each is a printed account number and a light source.
The user can select an account by pressing one of the buttons, which turns on the display light. The card then transfers the account information to what Dynamics calls the Electronic Stripe. The user then can use the card to make purchases by swiping it through any mag-stripe terminal.
In the other example, the device includes five buttons on the face and a thin flexible display, which hides a portion of the cardholder's payment card number.
When the user turns the device on by entering a personal unlocking code on the card, the full card number appears on the display for use in conducting card-not-present transactions online.
The technology in the card also populates the Electronic Stripe with the correct information for use at the point of sale. After a period of time the display turns off, and the mag stripe erases itself, making lost or stolen cards unusable.
Jeff Mullen, Dynamics' chief executive, would not say what the cards cost.
He said issuers should view the cards as "revenue generators," not as "cost centers." They reduce costs by reducing fraud, which increases the value proposition for banks that choose to offer them, Mullen said.
