The Ukrainian parliament has passed the first reading of a bill to introduce biometric IDs to the country. The bill also would enable the creation of a unified state demographic database with basic personal information on all citizens and it would also call for the implementation of e-passports with contactless smart card chips. This bill […]

The Regional Transportation District (RTD) of the Denver Metro Area is introducing a new smart card fare payment system, which is expected to replace all general bus passes and punch cards throughout the system late next year, according to The Daily Camera. The smart card – dubbed MyRide – is equipped with a chip that […]

ABI Research has updated its 2012 market forecasts for the smart card and secure IC market from 261 million to 540 million units. The drivers behind this growth are increased demand for secure microcontrollers with high security and authentication capabilities for the anti-counterfeiting and NFC secure element sectors. While this quarter’s information has remained the […]

Unified Payment and Dejavoo Systems announced that new point-of-sale terminals based on the V Series POS product line are now shipping for both the Unified Payments line of business and their Process Pink brand. These specially configured V8 units from Dejavoo Systems have traditional swipe capability as well as EMV, contactless, and dual-communication capability. The […]

The Government of Canada has plans in the works to equip a new 10-year electronic passport that can be used to authenticate the identity of travelers. The government is issuing the new 10-year electronic passports starting in the spring but will also still offer a five-year version as well. The e-passport contains a chip and […]

Repsol, an integrated Spanish oil and gas company, has installed PIN pads with contactless technology in 140 services stations across Barcelona and Balearic Islands. The contactless deployment follows “la Caixa” and its announcement that the bank has already issued more than 950,000 contactless cards and has 19,000 PIN pads in operation which are adapted to […]

Hong Kong and Shenzhen citizens will soon be offered a convenience with intercity commuting and spending with the introduction of the “Hu Tong Xing” smart card, according to China Daily. Octopus Cards Ltd and Shenzhentong Co Ltd together launched a two-in-one co-named smart card that combines a Hong Kong dollar e-purse and a yuan e-purse. […]

At the Intel Developer Forum, MasterCard announced its intention to partner with the chip-maker to provide NFC-enabled laptops, enabling them to act as credit card terminals. The initiative would allow for an online shopper to simply tap their card or phone to the computer to complete a transaction. In effect, this means that shoppers would […]