Smart cards

A new generation of cashless payment systems is with us - well almost!

Smart cards have many benefits over existing debit cards - they can store much more information on them and are expected to sharply cut down on card fraud.

It will be possible to for example store your mortgage details and your health records on a smart card together with a quantity of cash which can then be used to pay for small purchases such as newspapers and car parking.

Once the units of real money on the smart card are spent the card needs to be re-charged. It can be loaded up with cash again by transferring money from your bank account bygoing to a cash machine or recharging the card over the telephone.

2009-02-17 00:00:00 © Moneyextra.com