28 October, 2002
category: Contactless, Education, Financial
PRINCETON JUNCTION, N.J., Oct. 28 /PRNewswire/ – The issuing andacquiring processing infrastructure for smart payment cards is making progress
as key stakeholders position for expanding consumer smart card use, according
to two Smart Card Alliance studies released today. More than 21 million smart
payment cards will be in circulation by the first quarter of 2003, the studies
predict.
The latest Alliance white paper, “Smart Cards and the Retail Payments
Infrastructure: Status, Drivers, and Directions,” describes the current state
of the smart card payments infrastructure in the U.S., discusses the key
markets and applications that are expected to drive smart card usage and
acceptance and outlines the critical barriers to adoption.
“This past year brought many important infrastructure developments, such
as the 300,000 smart card-ready payment terminals shipped in 2001, deployments
of infrastructure at leading retail chains, the advance of significant new
smart card programs from Target, Citibank and others, and increased readiness
at the processor level,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the
Alliance. “This report gathers in one place all of the information regarding
the readiness of the U.S. payment and retail infrastructure to accept smart
cards today, and identifies what remains to be done.”
Reinforcing the importance of smart card research to the retail industry,
a recent report from the Food Marketing Institute stated, “Smart cards are
almost certain to play an increasing role in the way which grocers do business
in the not-so-distant future. By designing new payment and loyalty programs
in stores that take full advantage of smart cards’ strengths and capabilities,
grocers can ensure that they are smart about smart cards before consumers
drive the demand again.”
The Alliance also released a case study entitled “Ohio EBT Smart Card
Program.” It discusses the implementation and results of the statewide,
offline EBT smart card program in Ohio in which over 375,000 smart cards are
active, and more than 10,000 terminals are in use at over 5,000 retail
locations.
“This case study shows that thoughtful business application of a leading-
edge technology can provide advantages to everyone in the benefits supply
chain,” said Bruce Philpot, managing director of the Center for Automatic
Identification at Ohio University. “The Ohio EBT smart card program is e-
government at its finest. Individuals and families who participate get
greater convenience and dignity, and the state reduces fraud and simplifies
benefits distribution for itself and its participating merchants. It proves
that intelligently applying the right technology, in this case smart cards,
can benefit all of the stakeholders in a government managed payment system.”
The two reports, written for executives and managers, are available to
both members and non-members at no charge at http://www.smartcardalliance.org.
The Alliance’s Terminal Infrastructure and eTransaction Task Force, with
over 30 contributing members, worked on the project. Alliance members from
nine organizations, both public and private, were contributors in the
development of the retail payments infrastructure white paper including
representatives from ACI Worldwide Inc., ADB, First Data, Hypercom, MasterCard
International, NTRU Cryptosystems, Inc., U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency, SchlumbergerSema and Visa U.S.A.
Citicorp Electronic Financial Services, Inc. developed the Ohio EBT case
study for the Alliance.
About the Smart Card Alliance
The Smart Card Alliance is a not-for-profit, multi-industry association
working to accelerate the acceptance of smart card technology.
Through specific projects such as education programs, market research,
advocacy, industry relations and open forums, the Alliance keeps its members
connected to industry leaders and innovative thought. The Alliance is the
single industry voice for smart cards, leading industry discussion on the
impact and value of smart cards in the U.S. For more information please visit
http://www.smartcardalliance.org .
Contact:
Debra Montner
Montner & Associates
(203) 226-9290
[email protected]
Katie Wittcamp
Smart Card Alliance
800-556-6828
[email protected]