You Should Wash Your Hands – But, What About Your Credit Cards?

For years, and then again repeatedly over the last month, we have been told to stay safe and healthy. It bears repeating. So, you should wash your hands (of course) but, what about your credit cards?

As a society, when we started going more and more cashless, the germs transferred from person to person via paper and coin money, just started being passed via the plastic cards, too.

These are stressful times and you may be worried about it more now because you are still handing over your card to someone to process (say at a doctor’s office, Pharmacy, or even a curbside restaurant.)

Ideally, you should ask them to let you process via touch-less methods, where no one else but you touches the card. Remember, with the latest PCI compliance standards American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa don’t even require you to use a signature on an EMV chip card anymore, because the PIN in the chip in some cases replaces this.

So, what if you did hand over your card? Be sure to clean it.

But, how?

Can you actually wash them?

According to this “good to know information” Magazine, the best option is to clean the card with a professional cleaning kit.

If you are not able to use your commercial card cleaner – which you should have in your business as part of your terminal or POS card reader maintenance kit – you have other options.

You can also wipe the card with a sanitizing wipe letting it air dry before putting it away.

If you have been running low on these sanitizing wipes (and who isn’t) – you can use alcohol on a cotton swap, or as a final option, the same soap and water you are using to wash your hands.

As with the disinfecting wipes, be sure to air dry the card, or use a clean paper towel to fully dry it before putting it back in your wallet.

Have other questions? Just ask. And. Please stay safe and healthy out there.

PS In case you are wondering, yes, we have done it, and so far so good. But, since we are not the experts on the actual cards, just the processing of cards. But we wanted make sure to share the info with you with some references who could guide you on this, too.