The Smart Card Alliance published a press release this morning with some highlights from the CTST 2008 conference now underway in Orlando - saying that 'the buzz was about mobile payment and near field communication (NFC) on the first day of the joint Smart Card Alliance annual meeting and CTST conference.'   » Continue Reading

The Smart Card Alliance has announced the 2008 award winners for "Outstanding Smart Card Achievement" (OSCA) in the North American and Latin American smart card industry during its annual conference, taking place at the CTST 2008 The Americas Conference and Exhibition in Orlando this week.   » Continue Reading

INSIDE Contactless has announced that shipments of its MicroPass intelligent payment platform for contactless payment cards has surpassed 50 million units. According to the company, 'MicroPass is used to power more certified card products than any other contactless technology, providing issuers with broad choices for card manufacturing. Its low power and high performance, combined with the industry's fastest transaction time and outstanding read distance, enables MicroPass to deliver a superior cardholder experience for a broad range of innovative uses.'   » Continue Reading

The Federal Trade Commission and the Technology Law and Public Policy clinic at the University of Washington Law School have announced they will be holding a one-day Town Hall meeting entitled “Pay on the Go: Consumers and Contactless Payment" to be held July 24 in Seattle to explore emerging uses of contactless payment devices and their implications for consumer protection policy. According to FTC, the Town Hall follows up on its November 2006 forum, “Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade,” which examined the key technological and business developments that will shape consumers’ experiences in the coming decade.   » Continue Reading

CTST 2008, the largest payment, security and identification conference in the Americas, is being held this year May 12th through 15th at the Orange County Convention Center West, in Orlando, Fla. International industry leaders presenting during the Mobile and NFC Track include: 3G Americas, Aite Group, Authentec, Bay Area Rapid Transit District, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cassis International, Cellular South, Citibank, FireThorn, First Annapolis Consulting, First Data, Gemalto, Giesecke & Devrient, Infineon Technologies, Inside Contactless, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, NXP Semiconductors, Sprint Nextel, StoLPaN, Venyon, ViVOtech and Vodafone.   » Continue Reading

Stimulated by an American Banker interview with Wachovia's card chief Steve Boehm, David Evans posts on the Catalyst Code blog about contactless payments: "Contactless – like smart cards – is unfortunately a technology in search of a business model to support it."

Innovative Card Technologies, developers of the ICT DisplayCard for e-banking, e-commerce and data access authentication, has announced a two-year supply and license agreement with RSA. Under the terms of the agreement, Innovative Card Technologies’ one-time passcode authentication cards will be available to RSA’s customers worldwide.   » Continue Reading

Members of the payment card industry in Canada - Interac Association, MasterCard Canada, Visa Canada and many of their respective card issuers and payment processors - have reported positive preliminary results from an industry trial of chip technology in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.   » Continue Reading

The Smart Card Alliance’s first annual Payments Councils Summit held recently in Salt Lake City, Utah, reviewed the growth of contactless financial and transit payment markets in the US.   » Continue Reading

The Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council has published a new white paper titled "Co-Branded Multi-Application Contactless Cards for Transit and Financial Payment" that describes "an approach that leverages co-branded card marketing programs and the multi-application capabilities provided by smart card technology. The white paper is intended for mass transit agencies that are considering implementing a new contactless fare payment program or enhancing an existing program through collaboration with the financial community. It is also intended for financial payment card issuers, processors, and service providers who are considering working with mass transit agencies."   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Soaring rates of debit fraud prompt switch to smart cards' in today's Globe and Mail, Timothy Appleby writes about fraud on Interac debit cards and the planned migration to chip cards in Canada.

The Smart Card Alliance has published an FAQ on contactless payment security that applies "only to contactless payment using contactless smart card technology, as implemented by American Express, MasterCard and Visa." A PDF version is also available.

Union Bank of California has announced it will be providing its banking customers with MasterCard PayPass contactless payment technology on their debit cards. To be issued over the next several months, nearly one million Union Bank debit cardholders eventually receive new contactless debit cards.   » Continue Reading

INSIDE Contactless has announced the MicroPass 4000 contactless microprocessor family, calling it "a next-generation platform designed to bring a host of new contactless applications to mainstream markets in the U.S. and elsewhere, with two initial product offerings intended for contactless payment applications."   » Continue Reading

Jessica Twentyman writes for the UK edition of the Financial Times about the growth in NFC-based payments, writing that "the technology that will enable such transactions has fast been gaining ground, albeit in smartcards rather than phones."

Saar Drimer, Steven J. Murdoch and Ross Anderson, researchers at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge in the UK, have announced a demonstration showing that "Chip & PIN machines are not as secure as the banking industry claims. Two widely deployed models of PIN Entry Devices (PEDs), the Ingenico i3300 and Dione Xtreme, fail to protect customers' card details and PINs adequately." The BBC also reports on this story.   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Has chip-and-pin failed to foil fraudsters?', Danny Bradbury writes for The Guardian about the UK's experience with Chip and PIN equipped payment cards. In addition to the technology change, the UK also changed how consumers report fraud. Bradbury notes that 'legal changes last April forced customers to report card fraud to banks, and not the police.'

Oberthur Card Systems is predicting that "the smart card will become a mainstay of American wallets in 2008. Smart cards are equipped with embedded integrated circuits that enable the processing of information. Oberthur is the largest producer of contactless cards in the U.S. and currently 17 of its top 20 customers, as well as the federal government, have embraced microprocessor chip cards. This will put pressure on the last adopters of the technology who may risk the loss of market share unless they migrate to smart cards in 2008."   » Continue Reading

Payment card authentication solutions provider QSecure has announced that it has closed a Series C Preferred Stock financing round totaling $5 million led by QSecure's existing investors Allegis Capital, Worldview Technology Partners, Société Générale and UMC Capital.   » Continue Reading

Kevin Bullis writes for Technology Review about Kovio's new technology for printing transistors - and forecasts its use in making disposable smart cards.

Blackboard and Sony have announced "a partnership to support Sony FeliCa contactless technology in the Blackboard Commerce Suite, a family of applications supporting one-card transactions on-campus, off-campus and online and allowing for identification, payment and access."   » Continue Reading

Scotiabank has announced it will be participating in a Canadian payment industry trial of EMV chip technology in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.   » Continue Reading

Members of the Canadian payments industry - Interac Association, MasterCard Canada Inc., Visa Canada and many of their respective card issuers, payment processors and merchants -- have announced "the beginning of Canada's migration to chip-enabled debit and credit cards, Automated Banking Machines (ABMs) and merchant terminals starting with a trial in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario."   » Continue Reading

An article by Alan O'Sullivan on the UK's This Is Money web site expresses consumer frustration's with the lack of complete security against fraudulent use of cards in the Chip and PIN system. He writes "large numbers of cash withdrawals are being made using cards without a security chip and it is the banks themselves that are allowing it to happen."

I recently purchased an Apple iPod touch - and when it arrived a couple of days ago I was struck by how it looked a bit like a large-ish credit card - especially when turned on its side. Got me wondering what this fascinating chunk of technology might look like - and be capable of - in another 5 or 10 years.   » Continue Reading

Last week Canada's Interac Association announced "the completion of Canada's first INTERAC debit card transaction at the point-of-sale terminal using chip technology. The transaction was processed today by TD Merchant Services using a BMO Bank of Montreal chip debit card at Mercato Giovanni's Fresh Food located in downtown Toronto. The chip debit card transaction was conducted in preparation for the Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario market trial of chip technology which will begin in fall 2007."   » Continue Reading

In a press release yesterday, the Smart Card Alliance weighed in on plans by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and several states including Arizona, Vermont and Washington, to develop and issue enhanced state driver's licenses that could be used as acceptable alternative documents for crossing the United States' land and sea borders. The Smart Card Alliance says it "has serious privacy and security concerns for U.S. citizens participating in these programs based on the direction DHS has been recommending for the enhanced driver's license technology."   » Continue Reading

The Smart Card Alliance Contactless Payments Council has announced new resources for merchants wanting to know more about accepting contactless payments. A new white paper titled "Accepting Contactless Payments: A Merchant Guide" (PDF) and a presentation titled "Contactless Payment Deployment: Merchant Implementation Guide" (PDF) are available free of charge online.   » Continue Reading

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Global EMV Migration Update: Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America" that discusses the shift from relatively vulnerable magnetic stripe payment cards to more secure microprocessor-based smart cards in Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America regions. The report provides an overview of the state of the payment card market for each region, an analysis of the business case for EMV migration projects, and the progress of these projects.   » Continue Reading

Welcome Real-Time's Aneace Haddad blogs about some new study results that show the benefits to merchants from having the technology to deliver targeted messages and promotions to their customers on POS receipts.

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report on the plans for the Canadian payment card market to migrate to EMV chip cards over the next few years.   » Continue Reading

QSecure, a Los Altos, CA-based startup, has announced new technology that it says "will help the financial services industry reduce fraud resulting from stolen card data. The company’s patented SmartStripe technology protects against counterfeit fraud without requiring changes in retail systems or card holder behavior."   » Continue Reading

Paul Nussbaum writes for the Philadelphia Enquirer about the increasing use of smart cards by transit agencies in major cities around the US - including the upcoming launch of smart cards by Philadelphia's PATCO. Nussbaum reports that "Washington, Boston, New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, Seattle and Houston are among the regions moving to transit smart cards, with plans to eventually enable the cards to pay for parking, coffee, newspapers and other sundries of the commuting life."

Paul Nussbaum writes for the Philadelphia Enquirer about Gemalto North America's card plant in Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania, calling it the "biggest manufacturer of transit "smart cards" in the United States."

Canadian Tire and MasterCard Canada have announced that all of Canadian Tire Retail's 468 stores will be ready to accept MasterCard chip cards by the end of 2008. Canadian Tire is setting up its software, point-of-sale systems, and retail processes to be chip-ready as MasterCard issuers gear up to introduce chip cards across the Canadian market.   » Continue Reading

The Smart Card Alliance will be holding a webinar titled "Contactless Payments: Issuers Meet Demand for Speed and Convenience," May 3rd at 12:00pm Eastern Time, to "discuss why contactless payments are so popular and how card issuers can take advantage of the benefits of the technology. Presenters will include Deborah Baxley, partner and leader of the strategy and change consulting practice for financial services, IBM Canada; Peter Ho, vice president, product development, Wells Fargo; Carl Stauffeneger, senior vice president, consumer product management, KeyBank; and Jeff Tansill, senior vice president, BB&T."   » Continue Reading

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Smart Cards and Healthcare: An Opportunity For Payments".   » Continue Reading

Gemalto has announced a "new end-to-end solution to help Canadian debit and credit card issuers implement the international EMV standard. Its EMV Pilot Package includes microprocessor-based smart card technology to provide better security to cardholders, as well as personalization and consultation services."   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp and PrivaSys have announced a "long-term licensing agreement that sets the stage for First Data to become a clear leader in the processing of contactless and other emerging payments for its clients - both financial institutions and merchants - around the world."   » Continue Reading

Andy Williams reports for CR80 News about Canada's planned migration to EMV chip cards - and asks whether this will accelerate a migration to chip cards in the US.

Jack Shandle writes for Wireless Net DesignLine about near-field communications (NFC) technology - saying that the "mobile-phone-based financial payment infrastructure being planned around Near Field Communications (NFC) technology will make it a "must have" technology in future wireless products."

A couple of articles this Sunday advising consumers to be careful using debit cards. The first article, by Salt Lake Tribune reporter Lesley Mitchell, is titled "Debit Cards Hold Hidden Dangers". Mitchell advises using a credit card for regular purchases - not a debit card - because if your debit card is compromised, it can result in bounced checks, etc. in your checking account.

The second article, by Leslie Pappas of the Gannett News Service, is titled "Card Sharks" - and asks why the industry hasn't moved to chip cards in the US as has already happened in many other countries.

EMVCo, the EMV chip card standards body jointly owned by JCB, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa International, has announced its launch of a Card Type Approval process for Common Core Definitions (CCD) and Common Payment Application (CPA) compliant cards.   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'New Credit Cards May Leak Personal Information," Erik Larkin writes for PC World writes about the privacy aspects of new contactless credit cards - including a discussion of new "second generation" specifications from Visa that require the issuer not include the cardholder name in the data transmitted by the contactless card's chip.

APACS yesterday celebrated the first anniversary of the transition in the UK to chip and PIN technology on payment cards. APACS provided a number of statistical updates on the progress and impacts of this technology upgrade.   » Continue Reading

Leslie Pappas reports for the Wilmington News Journal on increasing debit card fraud - particularly using counterfeit cards created by skimming the magnetic stripe information off of legitimate cards. Pappas points out that "Europe, Asia, and now Canada and Mexico, are making the transition to cards equipped with computer chips and PIN numbers, which add an extra layer of security."

Chip & PIN Migration: A Canadian Retailer's Perspective, an independent study by the J.C. Williams Group commissioned by Visa Canada, has been released - showing "long-term benefits for retailers who implement upgraded technology that allows them to accept more secure payment cards." The study claims that retailers will be able to recoup their investment in new chip-capable POS equipment in less than three years.   » Continue Reading

Gemalto has announced that its personalization center outside of Toronto, Ontario, Canada is the first to achieve smart banking card certification from Interac, Canada’s debit and Automated Banking Machine (ABM) network.   » Continue Reading

Frost & Sullivan has published its latest forecast of World EFT POS Terminals Markets reporting that the total market accrued revenues of $1.3 billion in 2005 and estimates it will reach $2 billion in 2011.   » Continue Reading

INSIDE Contactless has unveiled its consumer electronics vision for contactless technology in the NFC Forum at the Consumer Electronics Show.   » Continue Reading

Clement James reports for vnunet.com that "researchers at Cambridge University claimed last week that a flaw in the system could lead to consumers being duped by fake machines" and describes the response by APACS to the news. Jaikumar Vijayan covers the story for Computerworld. Dave Birch shares his opinion about this "threat" on the Digital Money Blog. The basic issues is that chip cards, when they also contain the mag stripe, can be skimmed and, in the right environment, the consumer's PIN can also be captured and then used to perpetrate fraud at a non-chip reading POS or ATM location (for example, in Spain or the US or many other countries).

According to a new Aberdeen report titled "Retail Contactless Payment Systems: Improving Customer Retention & Loyalty", "contactless payment systems are fast approaching the tipping point of adoption within retail. After numerous pilots and deployments in the last three years, the continued pressure to improve the customer shopping experience is prompting retailers to adopt this technology." The report was underwritten by ViVotech, MasterCard, Alphyra, Visa and Discover Financial Services.   » Continue Reading

In a press release this morning, Cubic Corporation, one of the principal members of the TranSys consortium (the developers of Transport for London’s Oyster smart card transit fare collection system) has provided some additional information about the previously announced exclusive deal with Barclays Bank for the development of a new card that will host both Oyster and Barclaycard Visa on one piece of plastic.   » Continue Reading

Dave Birch writes about the recently announced Barclays dual-interface chip cards - containing both contact and contactless interfaces for communicating to acceptance devices. Dave will shortly be posting a podcast with Barclay's project head Richard Mould talking about this new program.

ABI Research has published a new research study titled "RFID Contactless Payments" that estimates industry spending on contactless payments hardware and software will reach $870 million by 2011, up from just $260 million in 2006 - a compound annual growth rate of 27%.   » Continue Reading

Bruce Schneier blogs about the RFID Guardian Project at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. The project has published a paper titled "A Platform for RFID Security and Privacy Administration" (PDF) that "presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of the RFID Guardian, the first-ever unified platform for RFID security and privacy administration. The RFID Guardian resembles an “RFID firewall”, enabling individuals to monitor and control access to their RFID tags by combining a standard-issue RFID reader with unique RFID tag emulation capabilities."

Visa has announced a "new set of test requirements to help card manufacturers ensure that emerging card technologies, such as battery powered cards and display cards, meet Visa standards for security, safety and interoperability."   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Canada has announced that Chase Paymentech Solutions has become the first acquirer in Canada to receive approval from MasterCard to process chip transactions. According to MasterCard, "Chase Paymentech's approval sets the stage for the introduction of MasterCard chip cards in 2007."   » Continue Reading

Members of the Canadian payment card industry -- Interac Association, MasterCard Canada Inc., Visa Canada Association, and many of their respective card issuers and processors -- have announced their commitment to conduct a chip technology trial in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. The trial will allow participants to test the infrastructure and ensure interoperability of systems and devices in a controlled manner prior to each participant's national roll-out plan.   » Continue Reading

Michael Crawford reports for Computerworld Australia on MasterCard's rollout of "a global dual-interface (contact and contactless) smartcard for the Asia Pacific, Middle Eastern and African (APEMA) markets named the MasterCard PayPass M/Chip 4 Combi Card."

Mercator Advisory Group has released a new report, "EMV Beyond Payments: The Bonus Card Case Study". Mercator says "loyalty on EMV is frequently quoted as the magic application for profiting from EMV The liability shift was still many years away when Garanti Bank started its EMV migration project in November of 2000, shortly after its launch of a Bonus Program in April of the same year. Over the past six years Bonus Card program became a huge success for the Garanti Bank and carried it to a leadership position in the Turkish card market. From 2000 to 2005, Garanti Bank gained over 6% market share on the acquiring side and more than 14% on the issuing side."   » Continue Reading

Chris Dean writes for the UK's Retail Bulletin about the implementation of Chip and PIN in the UK - and what's happening to card fraud as a result - saying "rather than reducing fraud in total, identity fraudsters have simply shifted their activity to areas that Chip and PIN does not protect."

ACI Worldwide has announced that Royal Bank of Canada has selected ACI’s Smart Chip Manager "to provide the foundation for its planned migration to chip technology for debit and credit cards. RBC chose Smart Chip Manager as its foundation for initial chip card issuance for market trials, beginning with internal trials in late 2007 and as a future platform for launching innovative payment card products using chip technology."   » Continue Reading

Gemalto has announced a new banking microprocessor card capable of performing multiple types of Visa payments: contact EMV (Europay MasterCard Visa), EMV-based contactless and magnetic stripe data contactless. The company says its new card is the first contactless product that meets Visa's global contactless specification for interoperability and will be available in mass volumes to major financial institutions starting January 2007.   » Continue Reading

The October issue of Smart Card Talk, a publication of the Smart Card Alliance, is now available. This issue features an interview with Mohammed Khan, President and Founder of ViVOtech along with a look at Transit and Contactless Financial Payments.

The researchers who published research recently into vulnerabilities in first-generation contactless credit cards have posted a video that provides a technical demonstration of the vulnerabilities.   » Continue Reading

John Schwartz reports for the New York Times in Monday's edition on new research completed by "a new consortium of industry and academic researchers financed by the National Science Foundation to study RFID" that concludes there are "potential security and privacy holes" in contactless cards. As part of the article, the Times links to two papers published by researchers Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin, Daniel V. Bailey, Kevin Fu, Ari Juels, and Tom O’Hare: "Vulnerabilities in First-Generation RFID-enabled Credit Cards" (PDF) and "RFID Payment Card Vulnerabilities Technical Report" (PDF).

Visa Asia Pacific has announced that the number of Visa EMV chip cards in Asia Pacific continues to grow with 52 million EMV chip cards now in circulation, a year-on-year growth rate of 48 percent. The number of EMV chip terminals in the region has risen to more than 1.5 million as of the end of June 2006, up 81 percent. Markets that have seen more than a 50 percent increase in the number of EMV chip terminals include Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand. At the end of June 2006, 28 percent of all terminals deployed in Asia Pacific were EMV compliant.   » Continue Reading

The Smart Card Alliance kicked off its annual conference in San Diego this year focusing on trends in contactless, mobile and transit payments. Among the strategies being discussed is the potential use of aggregation by transit operators to reduce their cost of accepting "open" contactless bank cards.   » Continue Reading

Marisa Torrieri writes for Contactless News about thin, flexible displays that are being developed for use on credit cards.

Card Technology reports on Inside Contactless' latest round of venture financing raising $25 million led by Granite Global Ventures. More details following from the Inside Contactless press release announcing the financing.   » Continue Reading

Tom Gordon reports for Scotland's The Herald about the decline in payment card fraud by 40% since the introduction of chip and PIN earlier this year. "The huge drop was revealed in the Scottish Executive's annual survey of recorded crime, with cases of fraud now at their lowest level for a decade."

Marisa Torrieri writes for CR80News.com about new ultra-thin, flexible lithium-polymer batteries called "Flexion" now available from Solicore and other batteries from Thin Battery Technologies (TBT), a small spin-off of Eveready. Torrieri reports that "until recently, on-card power supplies have been in-the-lab only. With recent advancements in thin, flexible batteries however, expect to see powered cards serving a whole host of functions identified and yet unimagined."

The Secure ID Coalition, an affiliation of companies advocating for secure identification technology standards to protect the privacy of citizens, has announced its formation and says it will be educating policymakers at the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) this week. The coalition includes secure card makers Gemalto and Oberthur Card Systems, as well as chip makers Infineon Technologies, Philips Semiconductors and Texas Instruments.   » Continue Reading

Dan Ilett writes for Silicon.com about yesterday's APACS news about the success of the Chip and PIN rollout in the UK, six months in, and asks whether it's really been a success.

The AAA says that recent changes in the United Kingdom and other countries may require Americans traveling there to be better informed when they pay with plastic. "The UK has gone completely 'Chip and PIN' and that's causing a bit of confusion for some travelers as well as merchants overseas," said Scott Denman, managing director, AAA Financial Services.   » Continue Reading

APACS, the UK payment association, has announced that six months after "PIN day" (Valentine’s Day 2006, February 14th), the UK is the world's first chip and PIN success story - with more than 99.8% of all chip and PIN card transactions are now PIN-verified and more than 150 chip and PIN transactions take place every second. (compared with 125 a second six months ago and 85 a second a year ago).   » Continue Reading

Lisa Bachelor writes for the UK's Observer about how "six months on from the mandatory introduction of chip and PIN cards, increasing theft on the Internet is forcing banks and retailers to trial new technology to combat card fraud." Because of the increased difficulty in counterfeiting cards as a result of chip and PIN, fraudsters in the UK are now focusing on both 'card-not-present' as well as non-chip and PIN environments outside of the UK.

The Smart Card Alliance has announced its annual conference will be held October 3-6, 2006 at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla in San Diego. The theme of this year's conference is "Preparing the Way for a Smart Future".

James Gilden writes for the Travel section of the Los Angeles Times about how American travelers might experience some difficulty using their mag stripe based credit cards in countries that have recently migrated to "chip and PIN" card technology - like the UK. "If a merchant doesn't want to take a magnetic-strip card, the traveler needs to be persistent," says Brian Triplett, senior vice president of emerging product development for Visa USA said. "Request the merchant to look into it," Triplett said. "Don't take that first 'no' for an answer."

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a review by the Australian House of Representatives, Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration, of the Reserve Bank of Australia and Payments System Board Annual Reports 2005 which includes recommendations that the payments industry in Australia consider implementing "PIN authorisations for credit cards, online functionalities for EFTPOS cards and chip technology for all cards." The committee also reviewed the Reserve Bank of Australia's actions regarding interchange fees and concluded "that the benefits of the reform, at this point, outweigh any alleged disadvantages." The full committee report (PDF) is available online.

Nick Miller reports for the Sydney Morning Herald on the Australian government's Federal Human Services Minister Joe Hockey and his plans 17 old government identity cards into one computer chip-based smartcard in a A$1.1 billion project over the next four years.   » Continue Reading

USN Corporation has announced a partnership with imX Solutions to "offer a next generation, interactive digital gift card that will be available for purchase both online and in stores across the nation. More than a simple gift-certificate style card, the new offering delivers an immersive, multimedia shopping experience for USN's online customers and establishes the company as a leader in the lucrative and rapidly growing gift card arena."   » Continue Reading