New Santander Zero CC Design

adamp87

Sandtree said:

Its not a pretty design but at least you can still use the card... AmEx have introduced their new metal cards which look the business but the contactless seems to be much worse. Normal plastic card can hover above the terminal by a cm or two and it reads fine, new metal card has to make contact or there is no chance... for some reason the TFL readers on the tube and London buses are the worst for reading them.

I'll take function over design any time... though the metal card will make a great scraper when things get icy.

Don’t you have to pay for the metal cards at Amex too?

D3xt3r5L4b

adamp87 said:

Sandtree said:

Its not a pretty design but at least you can still use the card... AmEx have introduced their new metal cards which look the business but the contactless seems to be much worse. Normal plastic card can hover above the terminal by a cm or two and it reads fine, new metal card has to make contact or there is no chance... for some reason the TFL readers on the tube and London buses are the worst for reading them.

I'll take function over design any time... though the metal card will make a great scraper when things get icy.

Don’t you have to pay for the metal cards at Amex too?

Only the Platinum charge card in the UK is metal at the moment 

chistery

Sandtree said:

Its not a pretty design but at least you can still use the card... AmEx have introduced their new metal cards which look the business but the contactless seems to be much worse. Normal plastic card can hover above the terminal by a cm or two and it reads fine, new metal card has to make contact or there is no chance... for some reason the TFL readers on the tube and London buses are the worst for reading them.

I'll take function over design any time... though the metal card will make a great scraper when things get icy.

The metal card has a plastic back. Never had an issue with my card as long as the plastic side is facing the reader.

wiseonesomeofthetime

Could the redesign be part of the move from VISA to Mastercard provider support, I wonder?

Sandtree

adamp87 said:
Don’t you have to pay for the metal cards at Amex too?

You dont pay for the cards being metal but the account type with them (platinum and centurion) both normally have annual fees irrespective of if you get a plastic or metal version of the card.

chistery said:
The metal card has a plastic back. Never had an issue with my card as long as the plastic side is facing the reader.

TFL (bus and tube) is the only place I find it goes as far as being an "issue", the rest of the time its just a case of moving the card a bit closer to the reader than with other cards.

Unfortunately one corner of the card has developed a dent (oddly the same corner as both my iPhone and iPad) and so there is a small gap there between the metal front and plastic back... does feel at some point in the future it will become two cards.

SuperAllyB

wiseonesomeofthetime said:

Could the redesign be part of the move from VISA to Mastercard provider support, I wonder?

My Zero has always been MasterCard, haven't they all?

dr_adidas01

SuperAllyB said:

wiseonesomeofthetime said:

Could the redesign be part of the move from VISA to Mastercard provider support, I wonder?

My Zero has always been MasterCard, haven't they all?

Yes the credit cards have been mostly Mastercard however Santander debit cards have been Visa Debit cards for quite sometime, they have now switched to issuing Mastercard Debit cards

sleepyjones

Do you get Braille bank cards? ... Just wondering how blind people manage with it  (I did try and read the numbers on my card with just a finger and that was a fail, so I'm not sure if that's how they (blind people) currently read their cards)

Sandtree

sleepyjones said:

Do you get Braille bank cards? 

Havent seen any... Natwest made a thing a few years ago about their cards which had tactile features on it but they were for orienting the card and knowing if the card is your credit or debit card.  Can't remember seeing anything else and certainly printing on the reverse rather than embossing on the front will be a step back for many.

Unfortunately the partially sighted have to develop their own strategy with these things... at least in the UK bank notes are relatively easy to identify. In the USA the $100 is the same as the $1 by touch (same size etc), a friend over there had to have a strategy of folding the bills in different ways so he could tell which was which and change had to go in his pocket until he got home and his wife could help sort and fold the new bills 

SnowTiger

Sandtree said:
Natwest made a thing a few years ago about their cards which had tactile features on it but they were for orienting the card and knowing if the card is your credit or debit card.  Can't remember seeing anything else and certainly printing on the reverse rather than embossing on the front will be a step back for many.

My new Natwest debit card has a notch carved in to its right-hand-side and six raised bumps on it. It looks similar to a braille character, however it doesn't appear to be one.

I'm surprised other banks don't do this.  I guess it add extra cost to producing the card.

It's similar to this one: 

My card isn't embossed and isn't contactless.  It was an old basic account that was upgraded to a full account several years ago.

I have another 'full' Natwest account that does have a contactless card.