... that old banking cards and credit cards are electronic appliances. At least in Germany, according to the law, because they contain a chip!
Which also means that you're not supposed to just cut them up and put them into your domestic trash; they should be handed back to the bank, or placed into the appropriate recycling station.
Here's a nice little instruction on how to cut them up, by the way. (That mightbe handy outside of Germany as well...) I wonder, though, how they are going to recycle the tiny, cut-up chip?