Live, Laugh, Love. Three simple verbs, yet many have deemed them the motto of their life. I used to think it was pretty cheesy, but when I took a second to think of the deeper meaning behind these words, I realized it’s not such a bad motto to use.  So what does it have to do with your credit? Well, everything.

Ever since credit cards began featuring magnetic strips to hold personal information electronically, there has been very little innovation in terms of the way payments are processed by merchants.  Now, fifty years after the advent of magnetic strips, it seems the credit card industry is ready to take its next big leap forward. The good ol' mates down in Australia have recently unleashed an exciting new technology that may provide a glimpse into the future of credit cards.  The new innovation is called "Visa Contactless", and it works in conjunction with consumer iPhones.

Did you receive emails from credit card companies over the weekend that read something like the following? "Recently, we were notified of a system breach at Epsilon, a third-party vendor that provides marketing services to a number of companies. The information obtained was limited to the customer name and email address of some credit card customers. No account information or other information was compromised and therefore there is no reason to re-issue a new card."

If you're at all like me, your computer is teeming with antivirus software, spyware guards, privacy alerts, and other enhanced security features.  It's what helps me sleep at night.  And if you're like me, you also rarely think twice about enacting the same kind of security measures on your smartphone. Maybe it's because I still think of my phone as, well, a phone, and not a personal database of extremely sensitive personal information, like social security numbers and credit card data.  In reality, however, our smartphones are pocket-sized treasure chests for identity pirates.