Card Technology articles from June 2006

Card Technology archives from June 2006

New Ways To Get The News: We will use our three new newsletters and our Web site to keep you current.
June 1, 2006... Where do you turn when news breaks? Probably to the Internet. In fact, you may well have been alerted to the news in the first place from an e-mail newsletter. We all get much of our news electronically today. That has many publishing...

EU Regulators Clear The Way For Gemalto.(European Union)(Gemplus International S.A.)
June 1, 2006... France-based smart card vendors Gemplus International and Axalto are on track to complete their planned merger by this summer, following approval of the deal May 19 by antitrust regulators at the European Commission. The new company,...

Newswatch: Americas.(usage of smart cards by younger consumers)(Seguro Popular is supplying 3.7 million cards )(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... CONTACTLESS NO EASY SELL TO YOUNG CONSUMERS Younger consumers are surprisingly uninterested in paying with their mobile phone or contactless key fobs, according to U.S.-based consulting firm Market Platform Dynamics. In a February survey of...

UK Fraud Holds Lessons For Other EMV Rollouts.
June 1, 2006... The recent reports of card fraud tied to unattended payment terminals at Shell gas pumps in the United Kingdom hold valuable lessons for other nations migrating to EMV, the international smart card payment standard. In May, Shell UK...

Plunging Prices Slow Vendor Sales Growth.
June 1, 2006... Major publicly traded smart card vendors reported lackluster first-quarter revenue from sales of their flagship product, subscriber identity module cards for mobile phones, thanks to an accelerating drop in prices. Prices plunged by more...

Newswatch: Asia.
June 1, 2006... TAIWAN LAUNCHES MULTIAPPLICATION CONTACTLESS TRANSIT CARD MasterCard International in May formally launched the first multipurpose contact and contactless card that residents of southern Taiwan can use to pay transit fares and make retail...

Mixed Q1 Results: SIM card revenue limps as prices plunge; meanwhile Gemplus picks up banking card market share. During the second quarter.
June 1, 2006... Vendor Sales % Change SIM Revenue % Change Banking Revenue % Change millions of euros millions of euros Millions of euros Gemplus 230.3 19.3 134.3 1.2 56.4* 48.6 Axalto** US$193.6 -11 $112.1 -17 $41.9 -6 ...

Calendar.
June 1, 2006... June 28-29: Australian Smart Cards Summit 2006 -Sydney Organized by Asia Pacific Smart Card Forum For more information, contact Association and Communications Events at: +61 2 8920 2547 craigmacevents.com.au...

Newswatch: Europe.(credit card industry forecasts)(Giesecke & Devrient appoints Michael Kuemmerle )
June 1, 2006... OYSTER CARD DROPS PLAN TO GO BEYOND TRANSIT Transport for London, the operator of the UK capital's public transit system, has cancelled plans to add an electronic wallet to its contactless, prepaid Oyster travel card. A TfL spokesperson...

The Mega-Memory SIM: How Big Does It Need To Be?: As vendors push their radical new line of high-capacity SIM cards, they are attracting some interest from mobile network operators. But while instant branding of handsets and Internet connectivity appear to be playing well with the telcos, mass storage of content is getting a cool response.
June 1, 2006... Some large mobile network operators are warming to the idea of using high-memory SIM cards to deliver such applications as instant branding of handsets, digital rights management and Internet connectivity. But with one important exception,...

In Brief: Korean Telcos To Test SIMS For Broadband Authentication.
June 1, 2006... South Korea's two largest mobile telcos plan to use SIM cards to authenticate subscribers to that country's version of WiMAX, a long-range broadband Internet service expected to eventually supersede wireless LAN. SK Telecom and KTF plan to test...

Testing 2.0 Begins As Nations IssueFirst E-Passports: E-passport testing is evolving, say observers, who had high hopes for the latest round of testing set to wrap up in Berlin earlier this month. Will its promise of more detailed and transparent results help governments find the e-passport and reader products they need?
June 1, 2006... Electronic-passport testing appears to be evolving once again, as the latest round of interoperability trials set for Berlin was expected to show, say observers. Until Berlin, the previous interoperability tests-two in Australia, two in...

Selling Smart Cards To Canada's Merchants: The major card organizations have united on a plan to move to smart cards. Canada's merchants are seeking concessions before they agree to go along.
June 1, 2006... Converting to smart cards will cost Canada's payments industry about C$1 billion ($US900 million). If the United Kingdom is any guide, retailers will bear roughly one-third of the cost. As they did in Britain, Canadian merchants are arguing...

In Brief: Ireland Ponders End To Mag-Stripe Option.(magnetic stripe)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... One of the questions facing a national smart card project is when to say no to consumers who want to pay by swiping their magnetic stripe, rather than inserting the chip and entering a personal identification number. For Ireland, where...

Getting Under The Surface With ID Biometrics: Innovation Winner: Hitachi/Finger-Vein Authentication.
June 1, 2006... In Japan, where consumers carry around wads of cash, a few well-publicized cases of ATM fraud in recent years created more than a little concern among banks and consumers. Several banks decided to provide extra security for their ATM...

Finalist: GemInstant Sticker/Gemplus International.(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Description: A sticker embedded with a contactless chip and antenna that consumers can attach to the back of their mobile phones or other portable electronic devices. Gemplus has come up with a way to insulate this contactless assembly from...

Finalist: Contactless Readers/Vivotech.
June 1, 2006... Description: Vivotech was a pioneer in developing contactless readers for credit payment and was among the first to gain certification from MasterCard International and American Express for their respective contactless applications. It also has...

MasterCard Turns a Concept Into A Trend: Implementation Winner: PayPass/MasterCard International.(MasterCard International Inc.)
June 1, 2006... The most impressive part of MasterCard International's implementation of its PayPass contactless product may have been its decision to launch it in the first place. It came at a time when its main U.S. rival, Visa USA, was focused on convincing...

Finalist: Chinese national ID card/ First Research Institute of Public Security.
June 1, 2006... Description: Every Chinese adult is being issued a national ID in the form of a contactless memory card with a 4-kilobyte chip. More than 105 million were issued by the end of 2005, and the government projects issuing 200 million cards this...

Finalist: "blink" card/JPMorgan Chase & Co.(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Description: A major U.S. credit and debit card issuer, Chase last year introduced its "blink" contactless credit card, and had issued nearly 7 million cards by early this year. Chase is rolling out the contactless card, market by market, and...

How Smart Card Chips Found Their Way Into Passports: New Markets Winner: ICAO New Technologies Working Group.(International Civil Aviation Organization)
June 1, 2006... In the mid-1990s, when the International Civil Aviation Organization set out to survey various technologies for possible use in the next generation of passports, there were no assurances smart card chips would make the list. The odds were even...

Finalist: PayPass/MasterCard International.(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Description: MasterCard International's PayPass application runs on contactless smart chips in credit or debit cards and other devices. Issuers have rolled out some 6.5 million PayPass cards and fobs in the United States, along with 80,000...

Finalist: Clear Card/Verified Identity Pass.(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Description: A program to let qualified travelers access special lanes at airports by using a smart card and biometrics. More than 20,000 travelers have signed up in the first rollout at the Orlando, Florida, airport, at a cost of $79.95 per...

Focused On The Future Of Payment: Visionary of the Year: MasterCard's Art Kranzley.
June 1, 2006... Ask most drivers to recount their daily commutes on toll roads and what you'll probably get are tales of boredom and frustration. Not so for Art Kranzley. His four-hour daily travels between New Jersey and his office at MasterCard...

Annual POS Vendor Survey: As two giants prepare to merge, EMV, wireless and china continue to boost sales for pos terminal vendors.(point-of-sale)
June 1, 2006... Those shopping for point-of-sale terminals in the coming months likely will face a host of choices. Among them will be whether to go wireless; upgrade to contactless through add-ons or entirely new terminal systems; and, perhaps, to seek out an...

Leading Vendors of POS Terminals: All revenue figures in millions of US dollars.(Point of sale systems)(Table)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Company 2005 2004 2005 2004 Shipments Shipments Revenue Revenue Ingenico* 2,000,000 1,800,000 529.3 517.2 Verifone* 1,800,000 1,500,000 485.4 390.1 Hypercom* 1,100,000 1,000,000...

Solid Growth: Breaking Two Billion.(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Continued demand for subscriber identity module cards for mobile phones and banking chip cards will send global smart card shipments over the 2 billion mark this year, projects vendor group Eurosmart. SIMs will account for nearly three-quarters...