> most banks now provide customers with a small reader (that looks like a calculator) for logging on to online banking, or authorising payments made via internet banking.

This means you can only make online purchases easily and securely at home. If I want to be able to make purchases at someone else's computer, an insecure back door must necessarily be left open even when you're not away.

> To authorise a payment you: put your card into the reader, type in the account number you want to pay, type in the amount, and type in your pin.

This doesn't solve the problem (which people may not care about) that the merchant could now have your pin.

>You then get an cryptographic authorization code to type into online banking.

This seems like a huge burden. Physically typing in long cryptographic codes? Do people actually subject themselves to this?

Thanks very much for the perspective.

EDIT: I retract the second criticism for reasons explained below.