Aconite has announced that it will collaborate with Ecebs Limited to develop and deliver a smart card that combines transport ticketing and payment capabilities with other services. According to the company, "he combination of Aconite’s back-office smart card administration and transaction processing software with Ecebs’ software for developing on-card applications will provide a unique end-to-end solution for managing smart card products, individual smart cards and their applications." READ MORE

MasterCard has announced the launch of a solution that harnesses the mobile phone as a form factor for its Chip Authentication Program. According to MasterCard," the initiative focuses on enabling consumers to authenticate their banking and online transactions through their own mobile phone with solutions from three leading industry vendors." READ MORE

Gemalto has launched the world’s first bio-sourced degradable smart cards. According to the company, "the card body is made from renewable material, is easily recyclable and compostable, and can be incinerated without emissions of toxic fumes. Additionally, Gemalto offers packaging made from recycled paper and vegetable inks that significantly reduce the product’s environmental impact. Gemalto’s bio-sourced smart cards will be ready for mass production in the first quarter of 2010." READ MORE

New findings announced by Moneris Solutions, Canada's largest payment processor, reveal that "merchants who process chip card transactions are experiencing fewer chargebacks than ever before due to increased security and fraud detection. This is the first data of its kind from Canada and demonstrates that chip cards reduce fraud and chargebacks." READ MORE

INSIDE Contactless has introduced the MicroPass 6000 dual-interface intelligent payment processor, designed as an EMV-compliant platform providing both contact and contactless operation. READ MORE

Commidea, a card payment processing solution provider in the UK, has announce the launch of Ocius Sentinel - calling it "the UK's first solution to offer both true end-to-end dual encryption and tokenisation. Ocius Sentinel has been fully certified for use by the major UK acquiring banks." READ MORE

Recently, US travelers to Europe have encountered problems having their magnetic stripe-based credit cards accepted at some merchants where Chip and PIN have been implemented. See, for example, "The End of Cards as We Knew Them?" by Glenbrook's Jacqueline Chilton.

Earlier today, JP Morgan announced several commercial card initiatives regarding expansion into Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Included in that press release was mention of a new card that the bank will be issuing next year: J.P. Morgan’s International Dollar Card (USD) which the bank calls "a cross-border dollar solution complete with Chip and PIN security, and the ability to support clients’ needs in the Middle East, Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia."

J.P. Morgan has announced that it has "significantly advanced its commercial card expansion initiative in Europe, the Middle East and Africa to provide corporate clients with higher degree of visibility and flexibility on spending and expenses in today’s challenging economic environment. As part of its continued investment in its global Treasury Services business, J.P. Morgan has introduced several new commercial card product offerings and service enhancements in the region, while a number of new product offerings are due to launch early next year." READ MORE

In an article titled "For Americans, Plastic Buys Less Abroad", Michelle Higgins writes for the New York Times about how US-issued magnetic stripe credit cards lack a chip that is increasingly required at unattended POS locations in countries overseas. Higgins writes that "as more countries around the world move to chip-and-PIN cards, it’s inevitable that Americans will encounter more difficulties paying for things abroad."

MasterCard has announced that it has approved personal card readers and authentication servers from four vendors for MasterCard Advanced Authentication for Chip - a new EMV authentication solution that leverages the hundreds of millions of EMV cards already in the wallets of cardholders. According to MasterCard, "banks looking to manage the growing threat of online fraud can today deploy this best-of-breed two-factor authentication solution by working with leading providers to the payments industry: DSSS, Gemalto, Logos and Thales." READ MORE

In a new PaymentsViews.com post, Glenbrook's Jacqueline Chilton updates her earlier post that described her personal experience trying to use her US-issued mag stripe (non-chip) credit card during a recent visit to the UK.

INSIDE Contactless and Cryptography Research have announced an agreement regarding the use of CRI’s patents covering countermeasures to Differential Power Analysis (DPA) and related attacks for INSIDE’s MicroPass and other secure semiconductor products. Under the agreement, INSIDE may use CRI's patents as part of the security strategy for its contactless semiconductor products which are used around the world in a variety of form factors – including contactless cards, key fobs, mobile payment bridge products, and NFC secure elements for mobile phones – for use in applications such as contactless payment, loyalty, identification, transit and access control. READ MORE

In an article titled "U.S. magnetic stripe credit cards on brink of extinction?", Beverly Harzog writes for CreditCards.com about the potential effects of a ban on mag stripe cards being considered by the European Payments Council.

Harzog takes a comprehensive look at the implications of such a move on US card issuers and their cardholders traveling to Europe - as well as exploring whether the US will eventually need to move from mag stripe-based cards to the Chip and PIN technology deployed in Europe and, increasingly, in other markets around the world.

Ingenico has announced a three-year partnership with Ryanair to develop the world’s first self-service passenger kiosks with chip and pin technology to allow passengers to purchase optional services such as priority boarding when they arrive at the airport. READ MORE

The Smart Payment Association (SPA), a group of the industry's largest manufacturers of payment smart cards, has announced findings from its 2008 market monitoring activity - undertaken in order to get a better understanding of the current status of the payment smart card market and its key trends.

"A lot of industries were severely affected by the financial crisis. Despite a slowdown in the SPA payment smart card shipments at the end of 2008, the smart card manufacturers are not as heavily impacted as others can be", said Marie-Jane Denis, President of the Smart Payment Association. "High volumes continue to be shipped around the world and a majority of regions carry on their migration to EMV standards." READ MORE

EMVCo, the EMV standards body jointly owned by American Express, JCB, MasterCard and Visa, has announced that it will host an inaugural EMV User Meeting on 30 June-1 July 2009, at the Sheraton Arabellapark in Munich, Germany. Users of the EMV Specifications from across the world are invited to attend the meeting, and participate in technical discussions on the development of the EMV standard for future contact, contactless and mobile payments. READ MORE

White Eagle (Europe) in conjunction with Newcastle Building Society has launched the Freedom Eagle Cash Card, an instant issue prepaid MasterCard available in a handy retail pack. According to White Eagle, the card "is fully re-loadable, unlike most other instant issue products in the market which can only be loaded once - some even have to be thrown away when the funds are exhausted. The Freedom card is fully functional even at entry level and can be easily upgraded to higher spend levels depending upon certain criteria being satisfied. The Chip & PIN facility offers additional security and the card represents great value for money." READ MORE

Travis Pantin writes for The National that the Central Bank of Abu Dhabi has issued a statement requiring banks to introduce chip and PIN technology on their cards.

Gemalto has announced that its Ezio Pocket Reader is "the first fully certified reader made available to the market for MasterCard Advanced Authentication for Chip. The Advanced Authentication for Chip specification allows two-factor authentication on any EMV card already in use, whether or not it has been personalized according to the MasterCard Chip Authentication Program™ (CAP)." READ MORE

Visa has announced details of a five-year agenda for Australia to strengthen the security of the payments system. As part of the agenda, Visa will engage in discussions with Australian financial and merchant communities to set deadlines for the implementation of seven key security initiatives. Visa says that "all of the initiatives will provide greater protection against fraud for cardholders, merchants and financial institutions, while some will also help to reduce the time it takes to make an electronic transaction." READ MORE

Peter Welch has authored a new report titled "Payment Card Fraud - France, Spain and UK" published by ECR Publishing Partnership. The report draws on statistics published by France’s Observatoire de la sécurité des cartes de paiement, ServiRed, the largest Spanish card payment network, and APACS, the UK payments association. You can request a copy of the report from Welch's web site.

Members of the Canadian payment card industry - Interac Association, MasterCard Canada, Inc., Visa Canada and many of their respective card issuers and payment processors - have released positive insight and observations from the industry trial of chip technology being conducted in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. READ MORE

In its latest issue, the Economic Review published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City includes an article titled "Can Smart Cards Reduce Payments Fraud and Identity Theft?" by Richard J. Sullivan.

From the summary: "Sullivan explores why smart cards have the potential to provide strong payment authorization and thus put a substantial dent into the problems of payments fraud and identity theft. But adopting smart cards in the United States faces some significant challenges. First, the industry must adopt payment smart cards and their new security standards. Second, card issuers and others in the payments industry must agree on the specific forms of security protocols used in smart cards. In both steps the industry must overcome market incentives that can impede the adoption of payment smart cards or limit the strength of their security."

The SmartCard Alliance has announced a new white paper titled "What Makes a Smart Card Secure?" that was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Contactless and Mobile Payment Council’s Security Work Group "to provide an overview of smart card security features and other security designs inherent in smart card-based systems." READ MORE

APACS has released its latest summary of card fraud statistics showing that total card fraud losses increased by 14 per cent in the six months to June 2008 compared with the first half of 2007. Total card fraud losses for this period were £301.7m, of which more than 40 per cent was the result of fraud outside the UK - which typically involves criminals using stolen UK card details at cash machines and retailers in countries that have yet to upgrade to chip and PIN. READ MORE

Dave Birch posts on the Digital Money Forum blog about whether the window of opportunity has already passed for EMV-based chip cards in the US - to be replaced by a contactless (and mobile) future instead?

In an article today titled "US travelers face credit snafu", Eric Lucas writes for the Boston Globe about how the migration of countries around the world away from magnetic stripe cards to chip cards requiring PINs for acceptance is impacting some American travelers. While merchants in Chip and PIN markets are supposed to accept foreign mag stripe cards, Lucas personally found he couldn't use his US Visa card while traveling in Scandinavia this summer. His solution: "Cash usually works."

In an article titled "Could this chip have prevented the TJX breach?", Ross Kerber reports for the Boston Globe on an interview with TJX vice chairman Donald G. Campbell who is "urging banks and other retailers to embrace a multibillion-dollar technology that uses a tiny computer chip to stop criminals from using stolen debit and credit cards." He's also proposing that retailers, banks and the card companies share the costs of upgrading the US to a Chip and PIN card payments infrastructure. On his StorefrontBacktalk blog, Evan Schuman writes: "There's little question that both moves [Chip and PIN plus encrypted card data transmission] would improve security, but the cost and change required will also make them almost impossible to deploy."

APACS issued a press release today responding to an earlier CPP release titled "Forecast is hot for fraud this Bank Holiday". APACS says that in the release "PP offers incorrect information when claiming that Spain and France are “… the top spots where Brits fall victim to card theft”. APACS says that its latest statistics "show that fraud in France on UK issued cards has decreased by £4.3million in two years, and France has dropped to fourth place for where fraud on our cards is committed. This is a direct result of the French introducing the same global chip and PIN system that we are using in the UK. Equally, fraud in Spain has fallen by £3.9 million since their rollout." In fact, based upon APACS 2007 fraud figures for UK-issued cards, the card fraud abroad is highest in USA (£24.6m) followed by Italy (£9.6m), Australia (£8.2m), France (£7.3m) and Spain (£5.7m). READ MORE

Rafael Ruffolo of ComputerWorld Canada writes about the migration now underway in Canada to the Chip and PIN environment of chip cards and consumers using PINs on POS terminals instead of signatures on sales receipts.