Have just received my new NatWest debit card and this one isn’t embossed with the card number like my last one just printed on wonder how hard wearing it’s going to be?
Santander did this for a while (I assume it is a lot cheaper) but I had to get 2 new cards before each expired (They have now changed back to embossed).
So I guess they didnt feel it was cost effective though NatWest might use a different printing method
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My dad has an unembossed NatWest debit card and it looks really grotty and cheap.
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Here in Portugal all debit cards are non embossed. They start fading after 3 months but then generally stay in that semi faded state where you can still figure out the numbers. They look pretty old and worn tough
This has been mentioned numerous times and has had indepth discussions about the pros and cons of unembossed cards as some people want Monzo to go in that direction.
My view, having had a Halifax unembossed card, I think they are cheap and the print rubs off which makes seeing the card number unreadable.
I think they have just acted upon a very important question when deciding to go with the non embosed print, and that is there is no longer a need for embossed cards, I doubt anyone uses the old 1980s carbon swipe readers which originally required embossed cards to work.
The horizontal card will probably be the next thing to go. As app based banking takes off more, having your account number, 16 digit number and CSV number will become more and more pointless,
Just the name of the bank and your name is all thats needed, since the other info will be hidden behind a password in your app. if you lose your card it probably wont be much of a security risk since there is no useful info on it.
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