Government ID, Smart Cards, Identification and Authentication

Research provides updates on worldwide EMV migration

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

A Massachusetts research organization reports that EMV is continuing to expand, especially in Europe, Latin America and Canada, but its growth has slowed due to the global economic crisis as banks are being forced to slow down or postpone their migration plans. In some cases these plans have been put on hold indefinitely and the outlook beyond 2010 is less than clear as the European market gets saturated and growth pools in other regions dry up, reports Mercator Advisory Group.


At the same time some of the inherent limitations of EMV are surfacing. Though EMV has been effective in reducing mail-non-receipt and lost-and-stolen card fraud, it has had minimal effect on other types of fraud, particularly card-not-present and counterfeit/overseas fraud. Actually, Mercator points out, EMV’s effectiveness in reducing certain types of card fraud appears to have driven criminals toward other types of card fraud.

“Demand for EMV products and services will continue to be driven by the SEPA initiative in Western Europe, though emerging markets in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe have good potentials as well,” says Terry Xie, director of Mercator Advisory Group”s International Payments Advisory Service. “China is finally moving as China UnionPay starts to replace its POS terminals, but the U.S. is still on the sidelines though neighbor pressure from Canada and Mexico could start to break the ice.” [end] 

Oracle has released a new version of Oracle Retail Point-of-Service that aims to increase security, operational efficiency and functionality in part by integrating biometrics.

Oracle partnered with DigitalPersonal to add integrated biometrics to the POS package. Users of the software will login using their fingerprint, which will replace the need for PINs or passwords. This feature intends to reduce fraud by eliminating the possibility of unauthorized employees using a manager ID or swipe card to access the POS and approve overrides.

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Research In Motion has officially launched BlackBerry 7.1 OS, the latest upgrade to its smart phone operating system.

Available today on BlackBerry App World, BlackBerry 7.1 offers a new content sharing application for NFC phone users called “BlackBerry Tag.” According to RIM, the app allows users to swap contact info, documents, photos, URLs, and invite friends to BBM by simply tapping their NFC-enabled handsets together.

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Visa Europe has announced that NFC-enabled smart phones from Samsung, LG and Research In Motion have been certified for use with Visa payWave, Visa’s mobile application for payments at the point-of-sale.

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Research and Markets announced the addition of Polasik Research’s contactless payment cards market report, “The Global Contactless Payment Cards Market”, to its offering.

The report describes the evolution contactless payment methods used at point-of-sale, with reference to the solutions offered under the American Express/MasterCard/Visa Agreement. The report also examines the prospects for the development of contactless payments all over the world, including the potential to develop into NFC-based mobile payments.

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Barnes International announced that its updated Visa GPR Test module now complies with the latest version of Visa’s Global Personalization Requirements.

The updated test tool will offer evaluation of a chip product to ensure it meets industry and payment scheme certification standards. This reduces a product’s time to market as the chip is aligned to Visa Specifications throughout the development life cycle and before applying for official Visa approval.

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In Europe, the Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) and EPASOrg has developed a new global standard to help accommodate changes in new payment technologies, according to SupermarketNews.com

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