Sure, there is a trade off, but they have it wrong for online fraud from stolen credit cards.
The three digit CVV code should be a one time passcode (OTP). Banks have been using these since the 1990s for online logins.
Using 90s technology, the card issuer would issue one of these OTP fobs along with the card. It has the card number printed on it, a button and a LCD screen where the OTP is displayed. The CVV is already sent through to the computer that authorises the transaction, the software that checks the CVV would need to be changed.
So we have a trade off of the user having to have a separate thicker card, to fit the battery, for online use.
I just googled, you can get batteries that are 0.4mm X 22mm x 29mm, a credit card is 0.76mm. Eink is old technology now with the right performance characteristics. I suspect in volume using this technology you could integrate the OTP device in the standard card form factor for less than a couple of dollars a card.
So with a bit of innovation the friction of payment / fraud tradeoff goes away.
This all strikes me as fairly obvious to someone designing these things, is there another tradeoff going on here?
The three digit CVV code should be a one time passcode (OTP). Banks have been using these since the 1990s for online logins.
Using 90s technology, the card issuer would issue one of these OTP fobs along with the card. It has the card number printed on it, a button and a LCD screen where the OTP is displayed. The CVV is already sent through to the computer that authorises the transaction, the software that checks the CVV would need to be changed.
So we have a trade off of the user having to have a separate thicker card, to fit the battery, for online use.
I just googled, you can get batteries that are 0.4mm X 22mm x 29mm, a credit card is 0.76mm. Eink is old technology now with the right performance characteristics. I suspect in volume using this technology you could integrate the OTP device in the standard card form factor for less than a couple of dollars a card.
So with a bit of innovation the friction of payment / fraud tradeoff goes away.
This all strikes me as fairly obvious to someone designing these things, is there another tradeoff going on here?