- The credit cards that dominate the spending habits of so many consumers, from companies ranging from Mastercard to Visa and even Apple with their Apple Card, are slowly changing the look and feel consumers have come to expect from these card products.
- Credit cards are increasingly adopting a vertical orientation.
- This is because apps like TikTok and Instagram acclimate the world to a vertically scrolling feed, and it also reflects how most consumers use their credit cards anyway – by placing them vertically in chip readers, for example.
Here’s something you probably didn’t see coming: TikTok and Instagram are such pervasive cultural forces in the world these days, they are quietly starting to influence credit card design, of all things.
In recent days, PayPal has released new vertical debit and credit card designs for its Venmo app, which a business leader said was inspired in part by the vertical orientation of those popular social media apps. Daniela Jorge, vice president of design at PayPal, said Bloomberg in a recent interview that this is exactly the way the whole world is thinking right now. And what people expect from apps and consumer products such as credit cards. “The world around us is becoming more portrait mode and vertical orientation,” said Jorge.
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In addition to PayPal, major banks are already moving in this direction. Bank of America, the second largest provider of debit card products in the US, was one of the first to adopt a debit card with a portrait orientation. Similarly, Discovery Bank started offering vertical credit cards in 2018. And the reasons we should expect this trend to continue as more banks adopt a vertical style for their card products include the fact that with the advent of chip readers and tap-to-payment functionality, this is how most people are already using their cards handle.
For example, with a chip reader, the credit card is inserted vertically into the reader. Likewise, as digital wallets grow in popularity – with cardholders increasingly using a digital version of their credit card stored on their smartphone – the phone becomes the device through which the consumer pays, rather than a physical card. And phones are, of course, used vertically. When Apple released its new credit card product Apple Card, I didn’t bother getting my hands on a physical version of the card. I signed up and got approved for the credit card, which I keep in my iPhone’s wallet app and use vertically because I just swing the phone in front of a card reader.
Think about the last time you handed your card to someone to swipe horizontally through a reader. It’s probably been a while, right? Now remember that two years after these chip smart cards were introduced, Experian says US banks have issued more than 855 million. They are also called EMV cards, which originally stood for Europay, Mastercard and Visa – the credit card companies that created this new payment standard.
“Switching our debit cards to a vertical layout is about more than what the cards look like,” said April Schneider, Bank of America’s chief consumer and small business products. Bloomberg“The vertical layout sets the debit card apart from other cards used by customers, and the addition of tap-to-pay makes the card faster and safer to use at in-store checkout.”
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Andy is a Memphis reporter who also contributes to outlets like Fast Company and The Guardian. When not writing about technology, he can be found protective of his burgeoning vinyl collection, as well as his whovianism and binges on a variety of TV shows you probably don’t like.