Sure, credit card issuers, including Target, aim to get us all using chip-and-PIN (EMV) credit and debit cards sometime next year. They will make our transactions more secure, and maybe we’ll be less likely to get our digits stolen in a catastrophic data breach. Here’s one question that you may not have thought to ask, though: where do these cards actually come from?

Sure, sure, the bank. But who makes the physical cards and mails them to you on the bank’s behalf? Credit.com paid a visit to the new, mysterious facility that credit card manufacturer CPI Card Group has built near Denver, where payment cards are born.

Security is about as strict as you’d expect: the Credit.com writer had to wear a pocket-free lab coat, and no employee is allowed to be behind a closed door alone. (Except in the bathroom, we hope.)

In fact, your future card may already exist. This new facility was built specifically to make EMV cards, since they’ll have to crank out more than a billion cards in order to meet the deadline and replace all current magnetic strip card with chip ones by next year. CPI Card Group already has millions of EMV cards stockpiled and ready to go: they will simply need to be encoded with your name and card number when it’s time to upgrade America’s payment systems.

The Secret Facility Behind the Credit Card Revolution [Credit.com]

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