It's Wednesday, April 10th. I'm David Brancaccio, and here's some of what's happening in business and the world. MasterCard, Visa, Citibank, and Chase Manhattan today said they've started a joint venture to come up with a system to put pocket change on cards. The idea is, you stick the card into your ATM or a special slot in your home computer and it fills up with, say, a hundred dollars. In some overseas test-markets, city buses, even parking meters are equipped with devices designed to debit the card.
Merchants save money by handling less cash.
Consumers would pay for the privilege of using the cash card, either through a monthly fee, or by getting dinged, say, a buck fifty each time they filled up the card. Credit watchdog Ruth Susswein is executive director of Bankcard Holders of America. We think it can be a really convenient tool for a lot of consumers. But we need to keep a couple of things in mind. If we're using a card that has a twenty dollar value and we're making small purchases with it, if you lose it, it's as if we lost the twenty dollar bill.