In November 2012 I wrote about Credit Card Design. And later that month I wrote a follow-up when I saw that MasterCard basically did the exact opposite of what I proposed.

Kevin pointed me to Coin, a new sort of credit card designed to alleviate the pain of carrying multiple credit cards in your overstuffed wallet.

He and I share some concerns about the quality and effectiveness of the concept. My commentary:

Damn. I’m thrilled with how similar this looks to the design I made a year ago.

I’m not as worried as you are about the 2-year battery expiration. Two years is a long time — you’re replacing your credit cards that frequently anyway. They’ll probably deteriorate structurally by that point, anyway, from normal wear and tear. (Remember how our college ID cards needed to be replaced at about that rate?)

What I am worried about:

1. I share your concern about displaying the name and the CVV data. The latter from a use case standpoint. The former because what happens when 2+ people in your party have a Coin? How do you tell whose is whose when the waiter returns your check? Etc.

2. If it’s that easy for you to switch which card you want to use, it’s probably also that easy for the waiter to accidentally (or maliciously?) tap the card and switch it to the wrong one. You probably won’t even find out until the end of the month when you get your statement.

And opportunity:

1. $50-$100 is not really a whole lot of money when you think in terms of locking a customer into a long-term relationship. Cell phone companies figured this out ages ago and have been employing the practice of deep ($100+) phone discounts in exchange for 1- and 2- year contracts. I could easily see Bank of America, or Visa, or whoever the appropriate relevant party is, knocking off the $100 fee in exchange for setting up an account.