Bank cards: where have all the numbers gone?

It is now increasingly common to see a fairly simple and uncluttered front with numbers and other information printed on the back of the card. Photograph: mihailomilovanovic/Getty Images

First there was the contactless revolution; now credit and debit cards are going numberless.

Increasingly, banks are relegating information such as the 16-digit long number and the expiry date to the back of the card, while a few are going the whole hog and not printing them anywhere.