Citizens Bank Moving To Contactless Debit Cards

The plan by the region's second-largest bank provides a big boost to the emerging technology, which credit card companies say will reduce the amount of time consumers spend in lines.

"This will allow you to get through the checkout faster, with more convenience," said Lisa Stanton, Citizens' senior vice president of card products and ATMs.

Update: more in this article from the Pittsburgh Business Times.

Editor's comment: Today, the migraton to contactless technology for debit cards is driven primarily by desires by banks to increase the likelihood that their debit cards will be used more frequently for everyday purchases, displacing the use of cash for such purchases. Banks benefit from the interchange income they receive on each new debit card purchase that displaces cash or check.

In the future, the presence of a "second factor" technology on the card - the contactless chip - could be used by bank's to help defeat debit card cloning schemes by detecting the presence at upgraded ATM's of the combination of a valid magnetic stripe, the correct contactless chip ID, and the cardholder's PIN. Creating a cloned card containing both a valid magnetic stripe and a valid contactless ID would represent a significantly increased technical challenge to those attempting to clone debit cards.