Credit cards, debit cards, prepaid transaction cards, gift cards, and other similar electronic tokens are convenient tools for consumers to complete a variety of financial transactions. Consumers use these electronic tokens to pay for daily expenses such as food, lodging, travel, and gasoline. The travel and tourism industry benefit greatly from the use of credit cards because in order to make hotel or rental car reservations, a consumer must provide a valid credit card (or in some instances a debit card) to reserve the desired hotel room or motor vehicle.
The credit card industry has grown considerably as electronic commerce and technology continues to advance. In the United States alone, there are millions of credit cards in circulation and the use of these cards will continue to grow as technology advances. With the advent of the internet, consumers have the ability to make purchases 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world by purchasing items through a retailer's website or toll free number.
The use of credit cards is particularly prevalent in the United States. Among the users of credit cards are those who are visually impaired. However, the use of credit cards sometimes requires that a consumer read the credit card account numbers or verification numbers from the card. Reading these account numbers can be inconvenient or even impossible for visually impaired individuals. Over ten million visually impaired card holders cannot read account numbers or the verification number for transaction validation purposes.
Presently known techniques for permitting visually impaired individuals to read information, such as on a telephone or in an elevator, involves the use of Braille characters. Automated teller machines (ATM) and other terminals, public transit, elevators offer Braille pads to allow reading of instructions and other relevant information. In this way, the visually impaired individual may interpret the Braille characters on the keypad to facilitate dialing a phone number or accessing a particular floor in a hotel or an apartment. There is no known mechanism that permits the visually impaired individuals to read account and verification numbers on a credit card.
Braille printers and other devices for generating Braille characters on printed documents are generally well known. Automated embossing systems have existed for a number of years. Primarily, these are devices for embossing letters or dots into a sheet of paper or plastic material, such as for embossing lettering into credit card blanks. Among these products are a number of Braille printers which use embossing heads which produce patterns of embossed dimples or dots corresponding to the Braille alphabet. Embossing creates raised elements, or bumps, that project from one surface of an object, such as a card, and a mirror image pattern of indentations on an opposite surface of the object. Embossing a set of characters in a region on one surface precludes embossing another set of characters on the contralateral region, i.e. the corresponding region on the opposite surface, as embossing the later formed set of characters typically obliterates part of the previously formed set.
Credit card issuers must comply with standards promulgated by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in Geneva, Switzerland with respect to the dimensions of the credit card and the placement of characters, indicia, and alternative technology on cards. Such prior embossing and imprinting devices have not, however, been suitable for producing Braille characters on credit and debit cards which can be read by a visually impaired person or that complies with the requirements of ISO 7811-3 and ISO 7813 standards for financial transaction cards.
Visually impaired card holders are limited to after-market solutions, such as Braille tape and embossers. These after market solutions require that an adhesive be placed on a tape or other printed material. However, these adhesive tactile solutions violate the ISO 7811-3 and ISO 7813 standards, requiring that alternative technologies can not be placed in areas of the card where they could adversely affect card features, such as the magnetic stripe. Attaching any type of adhesive on a credit card risks depositing adhesive materials in the card readers. In addition, the adhered indicia is easily removed through normal wear and tear by the consumer.