For banks and retailers, there is a fine line between making people’s use of credit and debit cards as painless as possible and protecting individuals’ financial details from swindlers.
How that balance may eventually play out is already taking shape in Europe, where many of the region’s 500 million citizens now rely on so-called contactless cards. These are pieces of plastic that can approve transactions up to certain dollar value (typically less than $50) with a simple swipe against a wireless payment reader built into a checkout machine.
