Visa announces major changes that will see Americans carry fewer cards in their wallets

Visa is changing how their debit and credit cards work in order to reduce the number of physical cards Americans need to carry around. 

With the new features, which will be available by summer, banks will be able to issue one physical payment card that's connected to multiple bank accounts. 

It means your wallet could get thinner since there'd be no need to carry, say, a Bank of America or Chase debit card as well as their respective credit cards.

Americans will able to customize their payment settings with their bank - such as having all purchases below $100 or with a certain merchant go on their debit card, while other purchases go on their credit cards. 

Visa is saying the new features its rolling out could make obsolete the 16-digit code you have to type in every time you go shopping on a new website

Visa is saying this could make obsolete the 16-digit code you have to type in every time you go shopping on a new website. 

'I think (with these features) we’re getting past the point where consumers may never need to manually enter an account number ever again,' said Mark Nelsen, Visa’s global head of consumer payments.

The new payment regime Visa is rolling out marks the biggest changes to how purchases operate in the US since companies introduced chip-embedded cards several years ago.

This comes as the payment landscape has diversified in recent years with buy now, pay later companies, peer-to-peer payment options, paying directly with a bank, or digital payment systems like Apple Pay.

Buy now, pay later company Affirm will be the first Visa client to roll out the card-killing feature.

Visa said its decision to shake things up is a response to outsized fraud involving online payments. The San Francisco-based company estimates that payment fraud happens roughly seven times more often online than it does in person.

Mark Nelsen, Visa’s global head of consumer payments, believes a time is approaching where consumers may never need to manually enter an account number ever again

The Apple Card was also an impetus for the change, as it does not come with a printed 16-digit account number. As part of that, Apple Card users can request a fresh credit card number at any time without having to dispose of the physical card.

Other nifty tweaks are coming to tap-to-pay capabilities on smartphones. 

Americans will soon be able to tap their credit or debit cards to their phones to add the card to mobile wallets, instead of using a smartphone’s camera to scan in a card’s information. 

They'll also be able to tap their card to their phones to approve an online transactions or tap it on a friend's phone to send them money.

The new features will take time to be brought on by individual banks, which will decide when or what to implement for their customers.