shape of credit cards to come

Recently, several credit card companies had announced new "keyfob" credit cards, which you could hang from your keyring. The idea behind this bold marketing move? Accessibility - plan and simply. If your credit card is easier to get to and in plain sight, you'll use it more often. Or at least, that's the theory. However, one could also venture to guess that (just like cellphones) the smaller the credit card, the easier it is to misplace it.

Other products that we've seen introduced by credit card companies are the clear cards, the ones with your picture on them, and the "fingerprint" cards being developed. In the UK, they have their own "innovative" credit card designs, such as the Mint credit card. This one has the lower right corner removed, resulting in an almost leaf-shaped card (hence the term "mint"?).

Whether or not all of this shape-shifting is resulting in more credit applications remains to be seen. After all, will customers really go for a product just because it looks cool or is shaped differently? History would present an overwhelming "yes" to that question. On one hand, I wonder what the big deal is. After all, everything is changing shape and getting smaller, so why not credit cards? But then I have to understand that credit cards have remained the same shape and size for over 35 years, so maybe this is a "leap" for consumers after all.

Another development within the credit card sector that has made waves over the last few years is the idea of "gift" credit cards. Visa was the first company that I had seen to launch this idea when they announced their "Visa Bucks" program, aimed at parents who were shopping for difficult to please youngsters. The Mint credit card company has their own version of this offering, too.

The consumer industry has long promoted store gift cards as the perfect gift. Then, shopping malls combined the strengths of many individual stores to offer a mall-wide gift card. Now we have credit card gift cards, which (theoretically) should be the ultimate gift for the picky gift recipient. After all, the recipient can use it at any store that accepts that credit card.

You have to hand it to the credit card and consumer markets industries - they never run out of new ways for us to spend our money.