So, the EMV chip is for decoration only.:p

according to them, it will be available after a firmware update.

Yup, sure sounds that way. They haven't made any SOLID announcement for how they'll use it. They have an EMV and NFC interface they can talk to, but not fully baked software for it.

So, this is $155 to consolidate several credit cards into one physical card?

Hm, no, thanks.

Plastc - All in one credit card done right!
 

Plastc is what Coin should have been. Canceled my coin pre-order and went with this instead. Pricier but solves most of the problems with coin regarding chip+sig/pin. E-ink touchscreen to show current card information.

Ships Summer 2015.

They have a $20 off referral promo, I have started a thread in S.P.A.M for anyone interested. No referrals here please.

Ahem and they will be able to put a battery and a screen in the thickness of a credit card?

And also they will break the EMV standard and copy out the secret from the chip on your card that is specifically designed to be uncopyable? Or partner with every bank in the world so that they can recreate cards on the fly? That will happen, obviously. LOL.

In terms and conditions:

Caveat emptor.

Well, they have listed multiple banks they have partnered with.
https://www.plastc.com/wallet

I suspect they will use similar methods that Apple Pay/Google wallet use where they use a virtual card system.

Where did you read they are giving access to some supersikrit tech to Plastc? I can't see the new token standard applicable to a chip card.

How will they transfer an RFID corporate access card to this card??

PLASTICARD=VAPORWARE if emv will be feature imho. Just like coin imho

Ultimately all of these card replacements will fail, even if they have EMV. The US looks like it's going to leapfrog contact EMV and go straight to phone-based contactless except as a fallback. Plastc may have had a shot before Apple Pay made NFC cool again, but it's too late now. Especially when people can use their smartphones or existing cards for tap to pay for free, and especially since the return policy on this is even worse than Coin's.

I.e. NFC which isn't exclusive to phones.

Yes, but so far very few card issuers are bothering with putting contactless on the physical cards, instead relying on Apple Pay and Google Wallet to implement contactless for them.

1. Plastc has a contactless interface. What will be enabled is the question.

2. You're living a dream if you think the US will end up being a primarily contactless/mobile payment country. This isn't based on any hard facts so don't ask for them, we'll just see in a year who was right. Cards, contact or contactless, are a better experience than paying by phone. I only use my phone because it's more secure than magstripe, but now I'm just using my contactless Amex in those situations.

Before Apple Pay was announced I pretty much thought that the US would never adopt contactless at all, even with physical cards. Mainly because:

1. The US is nearly universally chip and signature.
   • This means there's already signature bypass for small purchases, saving time.
   • Without something compelling (like a switch to PIN or a credible NFC contender like Apple), retailers without significant numbers of international visitors would definitely cheap out on their terminal upgrades and you'd find a lot of places where PIN for international visitors isn't even possible, let alone NFC.
2. Because of the US' always online authorizing of transactions, few cards support offline transactions, let alone PIN. This cuts out a couple of steps from the normal contact EMV flow and saves more time.
3. Online transactions are already pretty quick here. With the above optimizations, EMV without PIN only typically adds a second or so (from card insertion to card removal), not long enough where contactless makes a difference.
4. Plus, we tried contactless before. It flopped, partly due to paranoia by consumers and partly due to a lack of merchant support.

Now? In some ways Apple Pay is actually better than PIN and traditional contactless due to Touch ID and tokenization. And there's the typical Apple ability to make people actually want to use their products, too. Also helps that there's now almost no cost difference between a terminal that doesn't support NFC and one that does.

I don't think we'll get there by October 2015, but contactless adoption will be quicker than it has been in other countries.