Card Technology articles from March 2006

Card Technology archives from March 2006

A Matter of Semantics.(Semantic Card)
March 1, 2006... Bertrand du Castel, director of research for smart card vendor Axalto and the industry's resident futurist, last fall made a rather peculiar prediction for the smart card of the future. In 10 years, suggested du Castel in his keynote at...

2005: Volumes Rise And Prices Fall - Again.(smart card vendors)
March 1, 2006... Major publicly traded smart card vendors again posted solid growth in 2005, reporting higher revenue and volumes. It was the second year in a row of growth following the industry slump of 2001 to 2003. And, while sales gains slowed from...

2005: By The Numbers.(illustration)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
March 1, 2006... (part 1 of 4) 2005 sales (millions of euros) Vendor Total % increase SIM over 2004 Gemplus* 938.5 8.5 600.4 ...

Newswatch: Europe.
March 1, 2006... EMV HELPS ESTONIAN BANKS CONTROL CARD FRAUD The rollout of new chip-based payment cards that comply with EMV, the international payment standard for smart cards, has helped Estonian banks put the brakes on an escalating fraud problem,...

Newswatch: Asia.(biometric to identify cardholders )
March 1, 2006... JOYO BANK TO ADD BIOMETRIC DATA TO DEBIT CARDS Japan's Joyo Bank will soon issue new chip-based debit cards with a chip that stores scans of the cardholders' vein patterns, according to a report from Japan's Corporate News Network, an...

Contactless Keeps Rolling.(growth of contactless card)
March 1, 2006... American Express Co.'s investment in contactless technology is paying off, according to comments made last month during an AmEx-hosted meeting of money managers, analysts and executives from rating agencies. Alfred F. Kelly Jr., AmEx's...

People on the Move.(Innovision Research and Technology PLC appoints Heikki Huomo )(Freeman Co. appoints Greg DeFisher )(Level Four Software appoints Issa Keshek)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... UK-based Innovision Research & Technology, a developer of technology for contactless card systems, has named Heikki Huomo as technical director. Previously, Huomo was director of ubiquitous communication at Finland-based wireless telecom...

Viisage Buys Iris Recognition Company.(Viisage Technology Inc. acquires SecuriMetrics Inc.)
March 1, 2006... Viisage Technology last month announced it is spending $28 million to buy privately held SecuriMetrics Inc., an iris recognition technology company. The deal was expected to close by the end of February. The move makes U.S.-based Viisage...

Newswatch: North America.(Gemplus International supplies 1 million smart cards to the U.S. Defense Department )(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... GEMPLUS TO SUPPLY 1 MILLION ID CARDS FOR U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT Gemplus International, a France-based smart card company, will supply 1 million smart cards to the U.S. Defense Department for its identification card program known as the...

A Red-Letter Day For Chip And PIN In The UK.
March 1, 2006... UK banks and merchants may not be in love with each other, but the passage of a key smart card deadline on St. Valentine's Day suggests they have found a way to live together-and with the more than 120 million new chip cards that consumers are...

Late Breaking News.(StepNexus Inc. acquires Hive Minded)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... BIG CHANGES FOR MULTOS U.S.-based StepNexus Inc., which owns the Multos multiapplication operating system for smart cards, has acquired US-based Hive Minded, Inc., which created a smart card based on Microsoft technology. This acquisition...

Calendar.(Brief Article)(Calendar)
March 1, 2006... April 18-20: Smart Cards in Government Conference 2006-Arlington, VA Organized by the Smart Card Alliance For more information, contact the Smart Card Alliance at: Telephone: +1 800 556 6828 (US); +1 609 799 5654 ...

Five Tasks For The Next Decade.(growth of science)
March 1, 2006... When Henry Dreifus created the forerunner to Card Technology a decade ago, the focus of the smart card industry was on stored value and payment. Today, he says, it should be on digital identity. Since I launched World Card Technology...

Can SIM Cards Secure The Point Of Sale?(Subscriber Identity Module)(mobile payments and recharge services)
March 1, 2006... Worldwide, GSM networks will hit the 2 billion subscriber mark within the next few years. Most of these subscribers are prepaid and live in poor, developing countries. It means they have to regularly buy airtime to recharge their accounts,...

Vendors Pitch More Mega-Memory SIM Cards.(Subscriber Identity Module)(reports about high capcity Subscriber Identity Module cards)
March 1, 2006... Card and chip vendors continued to press the case of mega-memory SIM cards at last month's 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. All the major card vendors either introduced a multimegabyte SIM prototype or announced enhancements to an...

Rule Bodes Ill For Chinese SIM Market.
March 1, 2006... China's SIM card market got off to a fast start in 2005, with the country's dominant mobile operator China Mobile ordering a a whopping 91.7 million SIM cards, Card Technology has learned. But a new rule planned by telecom regulator...

E-Passports Await Real-World Tests.(Electronic Passports)(about electronic passports)
March 1, 2006... With deadlines looming, governments and vendors around the globe are accelerating their development of electronic passports. A handful of nations are already issuing the new travel documents and a number of others are preparing to do so. ...

The SEPA Impact: Pushing Through EMV.(Single European Payment Area)(Europay, MasterCard, Visa)(standards of payment cards in europe)
March 1, 2006... The rollout of payment cards and terminals complying with the international EMV standard started in Europe and has its base there. Yet after years of efforts, the move to EMV is only 40% finished in Europe, and that's a generous estimate. ...

The Future Of Smart Cards.
March 1, 2006... QUICK READ From mini-Web server cards to contactless mobile phones and passports, smart card technology is transforming itself to play a major role in the convergence of the Internet and mobile networks, the development of new ways to pay,...

Advertising Index.
March 1, 2006... ACT Canada 17 www.actcda.com Advanced Card Systems 11 www.acs.com.hk CardBASE Technologies 16 www.CardBASE.com CardTech SecureTech 2006 Inside Back Cover www.ctst.com Collis ...

Contact Our Advertising Sales Representatives.
March 1, 2006... United States and Canada Jim Baker phone 312 983 6179 fax 312 913 1334 Europe & Asia Bernard Pingree Jean-Charles Abeille phone + 33 (01) 46 43 00 66 fax + 33 (01) 46 43 01 34 bernard.pingreeinfopac.fr icabeilleinfopac.fr ...

A Rising Tide: Growth continues.(growth and sales of card industry)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... The major publicly traded smart card vendors again reported rising sales in 2005, thanks to continued strong demand for the SIM cards used in mobile phones and for payment cards. Growth, however, moderated from a year earlier, in part because...