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Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/financialservices/0,3800010322,39155871,00.htm

Leader: Banking on RFID?
Some people will want it, many won't

By silicon.com

Published: Tuesday 24 January 2006

If banks have their way, we could soon all be carrying credit cards with RFID chips, allowing banks to track us as we move around their branches.

And while it's easy to see the benefits for the banks, some consumers may feel a little uncomfortable about being tracked like a pallet of beans as the pay in some cheques.

It's a big step from having a card that can be touched against a reader to open a turnstile on the underground - such as an Oyster card - to being tracked as you walk around, even if the technology is pretty much the same.

Most consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the value of information about themselves - and may think that giving their bank the ability to track them is a step too far.

While banks would undoubtedly gather useful information on customer habits and interactions, what would the bank have to provide in return? Many customers would need pretty big carrots for this.

And what about unauthorised access to the information? If the bank can track your movements, will this data also be available to other parties? Inevitably, if these technologies are adopted widely, they will attract the interest of law enforcement and the criminal community.

Crooks and government agencies would both find this sort of intelligence useful.

Full disclosure is the only viable approach for banks thinking about rolling out this stuff - they need to explain 'the what', 'the why' and 'the how' to customers.

After all, the government is finding it hard to persuade anyone to buy into its ID card system, which is based on similar technology. And what bank would want to risk being voted out by its customers?