The Smart Card Alliance has released a new white paper titled "Fraud in the U.S. Payments Industry: Fraud Mitigation and Prevention Measures in Use and Chip Card Technology Impact on Fraud" developed by its Contactless and Mobile Payments Council.

"Criminals are known to exploit the weakest link in a payments infrastructure. With issuers in the rest of the world moving to EMV, it is likely that criminals are going to move counterfeit card activities to the U.S., attacking both U.S. and international issuers," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. "If the United States wants to avoid an incoming tide of higher loss, the industry must be willing and able to make investments in emerging technologies." READ MORE

The Smart Card Alliance has published a new position paper titled “End-to-End Encryption and Chip Cards in the U.S. Payments Industry" that "proposes an alternative to end-to-end encryption, protecting cardholder data by using chip card technology, but in a different way than has been considered in the past."

Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance, said "In our paper we discuss a different approach optimized for the U.S. payment market: using contactless chip cards, including a dynamic cryptogram with each transaction and authorizing transactions online. This stands in sharp contrast to previous considerations of implementing 'chip and PIN' based on the full EMV standard. Instead, this proposal builds on what is already happening in the U.S. -- the issuance and merchant acceptance of contactless cards -- while keeping in step with globally interoperable EMV standards." READ MORE

The Smart Card Alliance's Contactless and Mobile Payments Council has published a new research paper titled "Issuer and Merchant Best Practices: Promoting Contactless Payments Usage and Acceptance" that identifies issuer and merchant best practices for driving consumer use of contactless payments. READ MORE

The Smart Card Alliance has announced the agenda for the CTST The Americas 2009 Conference being held May 4-7, 2009 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. READ MORE

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

The Smart Card Alliance has announced that its Contactless Payments Council will expand its focus to include the topics of Near Field Communications (NFC) and mobile payments - renaming itself to the Contactless and Mobile Payments Council. It also announced new officers and steering committee, recent achievements, and upcoming projects. READ MORE

In a press release, the Smart Card Alliance reports that "after two years of fast growth in contactless payments, the verdict is in: Once consumers try contactless, they like it! And with large issuers including American Express, Chase, Citibank, Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo and many others issuing contactless cards, the number of users is growing fast." READ MORE

A new webinar series produced in partnership by the Smart Card Alliance and the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) will hold its first webinar on the topic of "Smart Cards in Mobile Payment/Near Field Communications (NFC)" on September 25th from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET. Registration is available for the event at http://www.smartcardalliance.org/pages/activities-events-web-seminars. READ MORE

According to the Smart Card Alliance Contactless Payments Council, "eighty-six percent of industry stakeholders believe NFC-based proximity payments will be adopted, and it will happen with a “Collaboration Model,” bringing together banks, mobile operators, merchants, handset manufacturers and other service providers. The Council has published a new research report detailing its findings including various stakeholders’ opinions on potential new sources of revenue from advertising, loyalty and rewards, co-branding arrangements, and customer fees for new services. READ MORE

In his column this week titled "A Primer on Smart Cards", David Pogue writes for the New York Times about smart cards - saying that "smart cards have always fascinated me, especially when I read about their potential for streamlining small cashless purchases." Pogue interviews Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance.

The Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council has announced publication of a new white paper, "Serving Unbanked Consumers in the Transit Industry with Prepaid Cards” , that examines how transit agencies can serve "unbanked" or "underbanked" individuals, including both the traditional approach of establishing retail sales outlets for fare media and a potential new approach of using network-branded prepaid cards. READ MORE

The Smart Card Alliance has begun offering a new online course titled "Fundamentals of Smart Card Technology". The online training course takes about six hours to complete and costs $99 per participant.

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. READ MORE

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.

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."

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.

According to the Smart Card Alliance, "the vigorous take up of contactless payment in the United States and its future in mobile phones, plus a Mount Sinai Medical Center initiative to give patients control of their own health and hospital registration information, highlighted the Alliance's annual conference."

The Smart Card Alliance has published a new white paper titled "Mobile Payments: Leveraging NFC and the Contactless Financial Payments Infrastructure" that concludes that "proximity mobile payment – because it leverages the well-established infrastructure of the financial payments industry, and because it is based on Near Field Communication (NFC) technology and the ISO/IEC 14443 standard – will become the mobile payment technology of choice for consumers using mobile phones for retail payment transactions in the United States."