I remember back in 2017 and 2018 there was some talk about coral core cards… are these now the standard for accounts? If not, what percentage of new issued cards have a coral core, if any?
And how does one get one? 
This question has a bit of a complex answer today because it depends on which one of our manufacturing and personalisation (embossing your name, etc.) partners gets your card order and what design of card you’re ordering (investor, standard, joint, etc.).
Very soon though, based on the work I’ve been doing, I expect that 100% of ordered Monzo cards across all designs will have either a coral core or coral edging! 
10 Likes
So at the moment it’s quite hit and miss
My Beta card and previous current account card both had coral cores so I’m quite disappointed with my white core one, looks much duller
Will the cards with coral edging be more like the coral core ones, or the white ones?
Do I dare ask? 
My shiny investor card is coral core, as was my last card 
but coral edging sounds fancy 
1 Like
Coral edging means that the card has the same coral colour on the edge but with a core that doesn’t make the card so translucent. We’re trying it out for future iterations of the card.
3 Likes
Ah, I see!
How would that affect the colour of the card? Based on what I’ve seen I’m unsure if the core has anything to do with how hot the coral is, but I suspect it might do
I guess I’ll just wait for an announcement before losing my card 
What determines if Nitecrest deal with a replacement card order or not? Customer location, demand, whether it’s a particular type of card?
2 Likes
I would love to know this too!
What’s the future of embossed cards? Seems a big push by lots of banks to ‘flat cards’
There isn’t a concrete ruleset for how a card is manufactured except that all Investor and Joint Account cards are coral core, while standard cards can be either. Periodically the backend picks the oldest pending cards from a pool and builds a batch for a card manufacturer, and the timing of the order and the size of our backlog dictates where your card ends up.
Additionally we change the precise batching rules regularly to suite our needs and cope with any manufacturer issues.
4 Likes
Would be nice to see a more minimalistic card (no/less information on the front), or at least no more raised numbers.
An un-embossed card means it cant be used when things go down.
Someone mentioned in another thread that they can just type the numbers but this isn’t allowed - it has to be imprinted. Visa Electron cards for example are not embossed and are not allowed to be used in this way.
My new Visa Debit card for the NatWest joint account is unembossed, so the old banks are going that way too
I’m almost certain that NatWest (along with most of the big banks) only issue unembossed cards when you don’t meet certain credit criteria. The embossed cards have somewhat of an unofficial credit facility as they allow transactions to be processed when card networks are down and the bank can’t refuse the payment even if you have no balance.
1 Like
Is that a new rule? I do know that the card number could be written onto the slip in the old days (it was part of my job).
2 Likes
No - but if the card was unembossed in the old days it would have specifically said ‘FOR ELECTRONIC USE ONLY’ somewhere on it and you shouldn’t have done that.
That being said, if you did it and it worked it means the customer wasn’t being shady and had enough money and it all worked out fine.
2 Likes
You can still just write the numbers down. Well, you could 3 years ago.
Although where I work now they don’t even have the grid machine things anymore. Id imagine it’ll mostly be really old stores that still have them laying around somewhere.
I’m all for unembossed. 
We have one of the card imprint things where I work. Never used it. Also when things are back up and running we then have to input the card numbers as keyed.
I guess we only need the slips to prove the signature in response to a chargeback. Which still probably wouldn’t be enough.
(I’m guessing some of this as I haven’t used it and no one ever has. I haven’t actually been told how it works.)
Am I the only one that actually likes the look and feel of embossed characters and digits on cards? 
6 Likes
No I do as well. I think unembossed cards look and feel cheap and in my mind is cheap. (Maybe it’s subconsciously because I remember Visa Electron and Solo cards.) 
*Actually Solo cards were embossed.
4 Likes