Why do Credit Cards still have raised numbers?

Photo By Daniel Suchenski

According to Creditcards.com, It once was necessary to have credit cards embossed, that is having the numbers raised above the surface of the card, that’s because “the common way of approving credit card transactions involved making a physical impression of the numbers via carbon packets and a "zip zap" machine.”[1] Today however, credit cards are rarely processed using this method. Indeed, as the world moves everyday toward more advanced payment methods like EMV (An international standard for smart credit cards that have a built-in CPU chip), why do credit cards still emboss their cards?

            The answer that seems most likely is that while the vast majority of people with credit cards don’t use the embossed feature, there remains a small minority that still takes advantage of the feature. If this is true then there is another issue that is raised. Since it requires an additional step to emboss the cards and the number and security information can be used manually input to process an order why are the credit card companies spending the money to emboss cards?

            As limited but persistent use of the cards by a minority seems unlikely from a simple cost analysis point of view, the answer must lie elsewhere. Without having relevant data to support this claim, it seems reasonable that the marginal benefit of not producing the cards embossed is at least as great as the marginal cost to change the manufacturing process to simply exclude the embossing stage. This cost-benefit principle also rings true for the efficiency principle. Not only is the added cost to emboss cards unnecessary and costly, this stage also delays the time between requesting a card and actually receiving it. These are both fundamental efficiency problems that diminish credit card issuers’ ability to more instantly gratify customers, while also saving money and time. This also seems like a good example of a low hanging fruit that, while it may not make as much money as other products and services of a large company is certainly a perfect example of a quick fix to a problem that is uncomplicated. This example is echoed in the principle of increasing opportunity costs. While it would only be a one time savings, it is far easier and simpler to make this manufacturing change than to come up with a more complex credit default swap to make money.

Given the above mentioned examples of why it makes more sense to discontinue the use of embossing credit cards why is it likely that we will continue to see them in the near-future? One possibility that was raised and the one that seems most plausible as the correct, or at least most, prevalent reason, is that people consider credit cards without embossed numbers to be “unreal”. The perception of the cards has a very strong correlation to their appearance. According to Chunk “One of the reasons that our company still issues embossed cards (in Europe) is that non embossed cards aren't taken seriously. This is obviously a public perception issue but when you have a piece of plastic with a printed PAN, expiry, etc., it just looks like a bit of a cheap imitation of a "real" card.”[2]

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[1] http://www.creditcards.com/glossary/term-embossed.php

[2] http://portalsandrails.frbatlanta.org/cards/