More than three decades have come to pass since “wise men” prophesied the near death sentence to cards in the hands of the cardholders. On the other hand, this period raised a complete new set of capabilities added to PVC cards, an amazing covering of response for issuers and marketing trends, a combination offering of contact chips, contactless chips, special processors, antennas, batteries, optical layer’s effects, light LEDs, security inks, biometric readers, dynamic CVV panels and a whole myriad of new materials in recycled and recycling plastics, metals, papers, wood products and the like.

The recent challenges imposed by the pandemic brought up concerns around how the card industry would cope against fungus, bacteria, and viruses on the card surfaces to make them sterile enough to address sanitary safety measures for cardholders. Again, it was the card industry that drove an inquiry pushing for this specific demand by the issuers and responded accordingly, combining efforts in a cooperation development with nanotechnology silver components applied on the raw material for the overlays in the manufacturing of cards. The same card concept properties are now being developed for metals, papers, and wood products.

Well, we’re all still hearing that the cards’ days are counted, once due to the evolution of the electronic payment systems, or due to the advent of blockchain, crypto currency, AI, and transactions with card not present, these complex scenarios keep contaminating the positive predictions over the card industry’s future destiny.

My guess is that the wise men have only a different point of view from us card manufacturers. Their view is toward when our present industry ends, while our view of the card manufacturers’ industry is toward when our industry future begins.