The chip and pin card could also allow customers to carry out more self-service transactions, and incorporate biotechnology such as fingerprint or iris-based identity checks.However, there are also plenty of payment initiatives that never quite make it into the big time. But the new cards are also well overdue; as Clark puts it at Consult Hyperion: "If the French can do it, why the bloody hell can't we?"Nick Huber is a reporter on 'Computer Weekly'. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." Sound advice in Shakespeare's day, perhaps, but not a very wise approach if you're living in a modern capitalist economy. Money may make the world go round but, ultimately, it's borrowing and lending that really drive economic success.For example, you may want to borrow because you wish to smooth your consumer spending over your lifetime. When it comes to buying your house, or perhaps your widescreen television, going into debt seems like a sensible proposition, so long as you are confident you can repay both the capital and interest on the loan. Alternatively, you may to want to borrow because you have spotted a business opportunity that will deliver a healthy profit, some of which will go to you and some of which will go to the person who provided you with the loan in the first place.

Alternatively, you may decide to save, hoping to meet future obligations for pensions, university tuition fees or a new car. And, by giving your money to someone who can invest it sensibly, you may end up with a decent return for your short-term abstinence. Given these positive factors, why is it that we spend so much time worrying about debt? After all, most people – although not all – take on debt on a voluntary basis. Assuming these people are reasonably rational, they presumably borrow because they feel confident either about their future incomes or because they have a nice stock of assets – equities, property – against which they can borrow with some degree of safety. Under these circumstances, there seems to be little reason to worry about borrowing: let people do whatever they want so long as they are not "fooled" into borrowing too much by unscrupulous lenders.This view, however, hides an underlying problem. When you borrow, you know the amount you are borrowing and, if you agree in advance the rate of interest, you also know the debt service costs from one year to another Nothing, apparently, could be simpler But this is only one side of the problem You may know what you have to do to get rid of the debt.

Whether you have the means to do so is another matter altogether.There are a number of ways of thinking about whether you may be able to cope with your new-found burden. The most obvious is the outlook for your future income from employment. For those who take on mortgages in their 20s and 30s, there is good reason to be confident the stream of employment income might grow relatively quickly. An alternative approach, however, is to use potentially illiquid assets as collateral against loans to boost spending in the short term. Mortgage equity withdrawal is a good example of this approach.

So long as your liability is covered by an asset, you may believe that spending today can be justified even if the spending goes above and beyond your current income.This, however, is a dangerous game. After all, the value of an asset is basically determined by the expected future income that the asset can deliver over the medium term. There is a tendency to regard assets as somehow either "fixed" in value or, alternatively, ever-rising in value. Indeed, based on this latter approach, all sorts of "house of cards" problems can arise: if you believe your current stock of assets will continually rise in value, why bother to save at all? You can let your friendly fund manager do the work for you.This might seem fine in theory but, ultimately, all sorts of nasty effects can come from this kind of thinking.