What’s the future of credit cards?

What most of us are after as consumers is convenience. Convenience of price, access and use. In other words, if someone is selling a product that’s easy to get, use and comes at a good price, chances are we’ll buy.

Credit cards are a type of electronic payment card, consisting of a card made of plastic equipped with a device capable of recognizing the identification data of the holder and of the issuing bank or financial institution. These data are typically stored on a magnetic stripe and / or chip. More than 75% of consumers in the United States have at least one credit card, and the average American has more than three.

What began as a simple method of making a purchase and paying for it later has evolved over a few decades into a worldwide network of digital payment processing that allows you easily make purchases online from anywhere in the world using your phone or computer. With such a rapid evolution taking place over such a short amount of time, you might be wondering what the future of credit and debit cards will look like. But to predict the future, you need to understand the past.

Since American Airlines issued the Air Travel card — the first travel rewards card — in 1936, the idea of offering incentives to potential customers has grown exponentially. Fifty years later, in 1986, Discover Card began its “cash back” program, which gave an amount back to the cardholder based on the total charges placed on the card during the year. Then in 1990, AT&T introduced the Universal Card, which offered cash-back on purchases that cardholder could use to pay their phone bill.

Nowadays, the abundance and variety of credit cards mean competition is at an all-time high. To stick out from the crowd, credit and debit card companies have begun offering generous loyalty rewards and cash-back programs to attract and retain customers. Airline miles, hotel points, cash-back, and other rewards have become the norm.

As the credit card industry continues to evolve, three new technologies are just around the corner:

QR codes — or quick response codes — are already a popular way to pay for goods or services. Alongside mobile wallets, QR codes are likely to become much more common due to their speed and security.

Voice commands. We’re also likely to see an increase in the use of voice command payment tools — like Amazon’s Alexa — in places like retail stores and gas stations.

Biometrics. Many major credit card companies are already shifting to biometric cards, which combine fingerprint and chip technology to authenticate credit card transactions.

Even though credit cards as we know them have only been around for a few decades, there’s no denying they’re here to stay. And with technology evolving at breakneck speed, there are plenty of reasons to be excited about the future.