Thatās a good point, although my argument would be most walletās are designed for horizontal cards. I donāt know why cards were/are horizontal to begin with
Perhaps Iām biased; my wallet holds cards in portrait.
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Iām realising itās a circular discussion 
. I wonder if the original horizontal choice was due to it being laid out like a cheque(my guess)
The earliest cards werenāt running on an electronic system, the cashier needed to ring up the issuer and read them the number. So for that interaction it makes a more sense.
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Thanks as I was literally discussing this with my other half and we couldnāt figure out why the design choice had been around for so long
Iām realising itās a circular discussion
I thought it was a vertical discussion!!
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I was trying to find out more about this myself - and Iāve seen this interesting timeline - but it just kinda seems they āhappenedā that way.
Credit Cards started out as āCredit Coinsā and āCredit Platesā, eventually Plastic came in, and the Magnetic Strip in the late 1950s. I would have thought the orientation was related to the magnetic strip / use of that - but it seems they were oriented horizontally before the magnetic strip came about.
Eventually, ISO 7810 came about to standardise ID card sizes, but I canāt see when this first happened, and it seems cards followed the āgolden rectangleā sizing long before this came about.
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Maybe itās based off charge plates but who knows
Iāve joined ulster bank and love these card designs
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