Now, a talking credit card!

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London: One would think the credit card would be hard to improve upon, but how about a card that talks to you?

Created by Dynamics Inc., they will also be able to display your balance, while also doubling as a reward card, it is promised.

To be introduced in the US later this year, they will have wafer thin microprocessors and will be able to run on batteries for up to three years.

As a security measure, the card will only display personal information after a security code has been entered.

Citibank released the new 2G card, which has a programmable magnetic strip and buttons on the front for users to choose to use it as a credit card or to spend reward points.

Even Mastercard has just released a card that has a small LCD screen which displays a one-time code which the customer can use to make an online purchase.

So if your credit card is stolen, it will be useless to buy anything with without the one-off code.

Banks, phone providers, Google and Apple, are reportedly working on mobile payment systems that rely on short-range wireless technology that allows devices to transmit encrypted data.

“Although mobile payments is the future, you're not going to move all that overnight to magical phones,” the Daily Mail quoted Todd Ablowitz, president of Denver-based Double Diamond Group, a consulting firm that focuses on payments strategy technologies and products, as telling creditcards.com.

“So these are step innovations, rather than leap innovations. Some are very much needed, and some are probably not going to make it.”

CEO Jeff Mullen explained that the end of the magnetic strip has been mooted for years, but is still the dominant payment system in the world.

He said, “Magnetic stripe readers are being placed in more places than ever before - like vending machines, movie theater kiosks and taxicabs.

“Even in Japan, where the infrastructure is in place and phones (which can make payments) have been distributed for seven years, the volume of phone payments is still significantly less than one per cent share of transactions.

“European chip cards comprise only about 10 per cent of cards in world.”