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PARIS—Will consumers want to see Godzilla's eyes light up when making payments with contactless cards? Oberthur Technologies is betting they will. The France-based card vendor has launched a chip card that contains two light-emitting diodes that poke through the surface of the card. When consumers tap or wave the "Smart Lumiere" cards at contactless-payment terminals, the LEDs, which do little beyond providing entertainment to the consumer, light up. They do not guarantee a transaction is approved, an Oberthur spokesperson says. The gimmick is not the only one associated with contactless payments. Terminals can give off beeps or blinks of light when consumers present their contactless cards. Oberthur demonstrated its card here at the Cartes and IDentification trade show; the card also won a Sesames award at Cartes for best loyalty product. One card has a cartoonish representation of Japanese movie monster Godzilla, fire blasting from his mouth and his eyes nearly burning red when activated by a reader. Another card offers a bucolic street scene, complete with streetlights with the two LEDs. A third card has the LEDs as headlights for a sports car. An Oberthur spokesperson tells CardLine Global the vendor next year hopes to launch cards with more than two LEDs. The spokesperson would not disclose the cards' cost but acknowledged the price is higher than that of traditional plastic cards. The cards come in two varieties: Pure contactless, which could appeal to North American issuers, and dual interface—that is, cards with contact and contactless chips—which might appeal to European issuers of chip-and-PIN cards.
