I am awake of that but for me the two seem to go together like apple crumble and custard.
1 Like
In the UK, yes, but look at the fact that in the US and now, with N26 Black, most of Europe, the ultra-premium card segment is dominated by unembossed cards. In the US, Amex even got in on it, making the US Platinum (but not lower levels) unembossed earlier this year.
Unembossed cards simply feel better to hold and are more durable to use, in my opinion of course.
I’d disagree - I like the tactile nature of the embossing and to me, it would feel cheap without it 
But of course, just my humble opinion
8 Likes
Absolutely we’re all going to see things differently 
but do you think the ‘cheap’ feel even applies to metal core cards like the new US Amex Platinum, the premium Chase cards, and the new N26 Metal?
To me, a metal core card feels the opposite of cheap. I don’t like them. Extra weight to carry! But they sure don’t feel cheap, to me.
Ah yeah, forgot to mention those! I’d luuuuuv a metal card 
I think engraving rather than embossing them would be good?
5 Likes
You could have a embossed card with metal core. I’ll leave that there.
1 Like
Request that in the next Monzo meeting. They can even colour the metal hot coral. 
1 Like
I’ll pass it on as a suggestion 
Maybe we should have them as staff cards? 
3 Likes
No no no no! OK fine! Staff cards and for people whose first name is Leon…Well what do you know!
I believe Monzo is internally planning on moving to unembossed cards, as they’re more secure and Mastercard is promoting their use more, so better get used to the idea 
1 Like
Oh hell no…Tell me it’s not true!
1 Like
Why not? I’d quite fancy that. Less fraud risk, card looks tidier, and no real loss - I have never used a zipzap machine
1 Like
Less fraud risk how do you work that one out? That’s not me saying you are wrong I just don’t get it. As to why I just don’t think they “look” right somehow.
1 Like
They can’t be used with zipzap machines, which means there can’t be manual transactions without involving a card machine.
You can charge an embossed card without an authorisation code, the security code, etc - all you need is the PAN and a signature (which won’t be checked unless there is a dispute).
The embossing imprint “proves” that the card was present.
If this is really a big deal for you, you may be interested in Starling. They’re another modern app-based bank like Monzo but they tend to aim to project a more traditional image of banking professionalism, which extends to the card design
Fair enough. Thanks for the explanation. 
Me? It’s not life or death, just a piece of plastic.
Not for liability shift purposes anymore, if the card was counterfeit, the imprint won’t help you. Only an EMV transaction counts now (with a few exceptions, such as pay at the pump in the US, where a magstripe read still counts).
A much bigger reason unembossed cards are more secure is that they can’t leave an accidental imprint on something like an envelope. Still, that’s a stretch. I don’t really believe there’s a security benefit to them.
I’ve never seen one and I don’t think it’d work well due to embossing through two very different materials - I think the results would be quite poor, to say the least.
I’ve seen embossed solid metal (e.g. the Amex Centurion Card) but then you lose contactless since you can’t do contactless on a solid metal card.
Definitely, all the metal core cards I’ve seen are laser engraved. When I refer to unembossed I mean exactly that, not just printed. Laser engraving looks very nice. But so can really good printing, and printing lets you use coloured inks and get metallic printing and everything.
Cheap printing looks awful…
1 Like
Personally I always associate unembosed cards with poor credit and prepay due their use historically in these sectors in the UK. But even in Europe all embossed cards I have have full functionality, a lot of the unembossed are restricted use such as not on the internet. Give me an embossed card any day.
1 Like
I totally a billion per cent agree. I guess it differs depending on where in the world you grew up and what you saw more of.
1 Like