Co-creating an accessible feature for payment cards

Company R&D teams are typically viewed as the nerve centers of product innovation. They detect or anticipate a market need and engineer enhancements or new products to (hopefully) meet it. Yet product changes do not always have to flow from the top down. At times, they emerge from the grassroots, from the customer base itself – arriving not as a suggestion but as a near-working prototype.

A great example in recent month comes from the world of accessible payment cards, where the observation and experimentation of an individual card user has given rise a new card feature that could make the day-to-day handling of cards a lot easier for millions of people.

Eddie Hill is a retired business owner from southeast England in his 80s. Like many people of his age, he encounters situations that sometimes present a few physical challenges. But one situation of recent years was so frustrating that he felt compelled to address it head on.

A trigger for card accessibility innovation

“I suffer from chronic arthritis in my hands, my neck, my shoulders,” he says, “and that often affects simple activities. Specifically, for several years I’ve struggled to easily remove cards out of my wallet when at a checkout or ATM.”

The inconvenience heightened his sense of vulnerability: “I’d attempt to get a card out and sometimes pull out several in order to get a grip on them. When in a queue, that would make me feel vulnerable as I may drop one – or wonder who might be watching my efforts and might see that as an opportunity to snatch my wallet or cards. Fixing that issue, I decided, would save a lot of problems for me.”

A natural problem-solver who had run a plumbing business for almost four decades, Mr. Hill devised a practical workaround – one that would allow him to get a real grip on his cards. Aware that modern contactless cards are packed with electronic circuitry, he carefully selected an area on the edge of one of his cards and proceeded to file two small niches on either side. “Immediately, it was better. I could pull a card out of my wallet quickly and easily,” he says. 

He replicated the modification across some of his other cards – debit, store, and loyalty – enabling “one-handed removal of cards from a wallet for the first time in years,” he says. Friends and family soon requested similar alterations to their own cards – whether these were held in wallets, purses, or phone cases.

Although that “field test” was partly successful, it exposed an immediate constraint. Etching a groove into the card, even subtly, could disrupt the antenna embedded around its perimeter, leading to failed “tap-to-pay” transactions and ATM withdrawals – and creating even more frustrating situations.

Reaching out for payment card expertise

Undeterred, Mr. Hill concluded that “there must be a way to bring such a feature to market” and began contacting UK banks and building societies. Initial responses were muted, but by an extreme chance he dialed a number on one of his cards that connected him with G+D in the UK, where the team’s response was decidedly more positive, and a colleague followed up on the call. 

As Thomas Tarantino, G+D’s Technology Director for R&D Card Products, outlines: “At G+D, we create cards for some of the world’s largest banks – many of which include accessibility features. So, we were immediately intrigued.”

The G+D team invited Mr. Hill to a G+D facility in North London, where he outlined the challenge and demonstrated the adaption to his cards. “I was impressed that G+D very quickly understood the requirement for such an accessibility feature and the opportunity it presented,” says Hill.

The visit also provided him with a glimpse into the internal circuitry of payment cards – and the technical challenge of introducing a physical indentation without compromising electrical integrity.

Prototyping and testing a new accessibility feature

“We not only listened and learned, we acted,” says G+D’s Tarantino. “We had been exploring the prospect of a solution to provide a better grip on a card for some time. We had looked at enhancing the roughness of areas of the card surface itself and adding texture along the edge of the card. But on meeting Mr. Hill, we saw from the start the opportunity and the possibilities to add a groove or niche.”

He continues: “It was great to have a situation where we already had hands-on experience from a potential user who has been struggling with existing cards out there in the market. And it was exciting to see what Mr. Hill had done to manipulate cards so they were more accessible.”

But, as Mr. Hill had found, there are limitations within the card itself, imposed by the underlying wiring that provides its electrical and contactless capabilities. “While it was clear we couldn’t implement Mr. Hill’s ideas directly, our team brainstormed the challenge to see what we could achieve to create the same effect without harming the electrical functionality that is integral to a card.”

Drawing on Mr. Hill’s insight, engineers experimented with linear, rectangular and V-shaped cuts, refining both placement and depth. Prototypes were tested internally and by external users, including with Mr. Hill and his informal focus group.

As Tarantino’s team observed, the difficulty of retrieving a card from a holder is hardly restricted to the elderly or visually impaired. “Trying to take cards out of a wallet is difficult for lots of people, which made it very easy for us to test options in-house.”

Mr. Hill was quick to suggest a favorite design: “What worked best was an L-shape. That way it would provide a gripping point whether it was being retrieved from the top or from the side. So, it would work for cards in a wallet, in a purse, and in a phone case.”

The result, now known as G+D Convego Dexterity Notch, is a thin “L” that will sit close to the top right-hand corner of a card, with bars extending a few mm. The indentation into the card surface is sized for a fingernail to gain purchase on, but not deep enough to interfere with the underlying electricals.

The accessibility opportunity for card issuers

Both G+D and Mr. Hill have high hopes for broader adoption of the card accessibility feature – especially as global card issuance continues to expand. By 2029, the number of general-purpose and private-label credit, debit, and prepaid cards in circulation worldwide is projected to reach 31 billion, up from 28 billion in 2024 – and that is not including the store and other cards that sit alongside them in many physical wallets, purses, and other card holders.¹ 

“When wallets are getting more tightly packed with cards, such a card niche could be widely useful not just for people with dexterity issues but by everyone,” says Mr. Hill. “It’s certainly made a great deal of difference to me, so, I think it could be useful all over.”

Demographic trends reinforce the case. By 2050, the global population aged 65 or older is expected to reach 1.6 billion,² while the number of people living with some degree of vision impairment is forecast to rise just as sharply.³ In aging markets such as Japan, the UK, and Italy, card ergonomics will matter.

A top-of-wallet opportunity 

For banks seeking differentiation in an increasingly commoditized market, accessibility may offer both reputational and commercial upside. Certainly, the introduction of a card edge presents a compelling proposition to someone like Mr. Hill. “A bank offering a card with such an accessibility feature would definitely earn my preferred, top-of-wallet position for its card,” he says.

For G+D, including a card niche as an option for banks and other card-issuing customers is also alluring. “Accessibility means designing payment systems that work for everyone, as payments are woven into the fabric of society. We’ve been working for many years to add helpful accessibility options to the cards that we create for our customers,” says Tarantino.

Today, those include distinct notches and tactile dot formations to help visually impaired customers distinguish between credit, debit, and prepaid cards, and to guide the orientation of cards at payment points and ATMs; high-contrast cards with larger text fonts and diverse colors for easier reading; fully braille-embossed cards; and card onboarding and activation processes fine-tuned for accessibility. 

Proposal for a universal card accessibility standard

Based on the momentum around accessibility, individual card issuers may decide to jump on the opportunity early, says Tarantino. “We’re seeing more and more banks coming to us asking for solutions for people with impairments so they can help them have a better payments experience,” says Tarantino. “Issuers might want to position such features as a benefit for their visually impaired customers, as an aid for the growing demographic of older adults who face dexterity challenges, or even as a general feature.” Early feedback from some of G+D’s partners has already suggested that kind of thumbs-up. 

Mr. Hill’s inventive spirit comes shortly after the UK government published its Financial Inclusion Strategy, which specifically sets out a desire to improve card accessibility standardization across the market. So, it is perfectly timed to feed into that work, not just to standardize accessibility features such as higher color contrast designs and card notches, but to have this new feature included in the forthcoming Accessible Cards Code of Practice developed by the organization UK Finance.

It’s an ethos that suitably echoes the most recent collaboration between G+D and Eddie Hill, proclaiming, “Together we can co-create solutions that make payments barrier-free for all.”