The "one card" could store multiple lines of credit as well and be linked to/programmed through a financial planning software (Quicken). The financial planning software could load rules onto a smart chip on the card that would interact with data at point-of sale to decide what line of credit to store the purchase. For example, a high-priced television set would search for the LOC with the best long-term APR while a typical grocery store purchase would get put to a debit card.

I would bet that the credit card industry would kick and scream at this idea as commodification of Visa/MC would be highly likely.

My wife writes code for smart cards for a leading smart card maker.

This is all about control of brands. You want a one card solution, I want a one card solution, but no believes that enough of us will spend $10 -$30 to buy and control our own card.

Of this I think around $5 is the card cost, the rest would emerge from the marketing and management costs.

IF you wanted to explore this (buy say 10,000 cards to distribute by way of a trial) then a risk sum of several tens of thousands of dollars would be needed.

My gut feeling is that marketed right, there could be a market for a My Card, and all it needs is someone with marketing ability and moest risk capital to step up to the plate.

If you want to pursue this, feel free to email me. You will need to show that you/your team is competant to take this forward, but if you do, I'll be glad to forward to the company.

Regards

Seems to me that this is really about marketing and not technology. I have an American Express airline affinity card that earns frequent flyer points. It's also tied into a dining service that gets me extra points when I eat at certain restaurants. If American Express were the only credit card provider, it would be pretty easy to tie all merchant programs to my card. In a competitive environment, no one credit card company is going to be able to make exclusive agreements to handle all of that stuff. It's just the nature of a competitive capitalist system.

I think the trend it already towards having fewer "loyalty" cards. Certainly, I have a Nectar card which gives me savings on about a dozen big-name shops as well as points on my credit card. (This in the UK)

In the long term though, it's hard to see how one card could do everything - then there's no point in having a loyalty card! Everything would just be 2% cheaper or whatever. As another person pointed out - it comes down to marketing, not technology....

instead of using a card why not be identified by your finger print? this would get rid of any security threat. if thats not enough one could also be identified by retina as well. when making a purchase you could choose from the available credit sources you have from a lcd screen, at safeway for instance, your safeway 'card' account would come up automatically along with your sources of credit.

Combine all the functions of credit card, drivers license, and psssport into one "smart card." In fact the "smart card" chip could contain your "bank account" balance, eliminating the need for the merchant to contact a financial institution- the payment is simply subtracted from the balance contained in the card. Recharging the balance could be done at home via internet, or at any ATM.

Keep in mind, with all that info on one card, or tied to it, you have to provide means that unintended parties don't get hold of and abuse data they ought not to.