Magic always comes with a price: Utility versus security for bank cards

摘要

Nowadays, coins and banknotes are familiar to us and, on a daily basis, we make cash payments of small amounts of less than 10 Euros. However, concerning high amounts, we cannot pay for everything in cash: firstly because the conservation of cash is risky and, secondly, in the case of loss or fraud, there is no recourse. Therefore, according to several recent studies, the most preferred and used method of payment is the bank card for amounts in excess of 10 Euros. In fact, the bank card has more advantages than the cash: it allows to make payments on the internet (online), avoids having to carry cash, being simple to obtain by banks, being very convenient to make payments in stores or to withdraw money with, as well as it is readily accepted for multiple currencies (in different countries), small in size and easy to carry. In this paper, we present an overview of bank cards, their advantages/disadvantages and types of card payment, then we discuss their security.