Those new-fangled credit cards

Citibank will soon begin testing a card that has two buttons and tiny lights that allow users to choose at the register whether they want to pay with rewards points or credit, at most any merchant they please.

Other card issuers are testing cards that can double as credit and debit cards, and cards with fraud protections baked right into the plastic. One, for instance, shows a portion of the account number only after the cardholder enters a PIN. 

All this means that we're entering a new generation of cards, Tara Siegel Bernard reports in The New York Times.

The microscopic engine powering the plastic will help breathe new life into a 1950s-era technology — the black magnetic stripe found on the back of the 1.8 billion credit and debit cards circulating in the United States. Much of the world has already moved to using more advanced cards, like the ones in Europe that require a PIN and use a chip instead of a magnetic strip.

Citi’s cards — known as 2G, for second generation — are no thicker and just as flexible as conventional plastic, but they contain a battery with a four-year life, an embedded chip and, of course, the buttons, which took nearly a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop. 

The cards have been tested by robots to make sure they would hold up for thousands of swipes. And this may be the best thing: they can also withstand the washing machine.

Still, we ain't seen nothing yet. These cards may eventually be rendered obsolete by technologies that will transform consumers’ cellphones into virtual wallets, and a large number of companies, including Visa, MasterCard and Apple, are developing these.