The Smart Card Alliance Latin America project kicked off on October 19, 2004 with the presentation of the Department of Commerce Market Developer Cooperator Program (MDCP) award totaling $288,000 that forms a partnering effort between the International Trade Administration and SCA to develop international trade and support education, training, and resource development for smart cards in Mexico, Brazil, and the Caribbean Islands. The Alliance staff has held organizing meetings with ITA field office personnel in Mexico and Brazil to discuss ways to bring smart card awareness and education to the government and commercial markets in those countries. The Alliance has also met with ITA personnel based in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and Miami who are in support roles and are prepared to assist the Alliance's Latin American project.

In July 2005 the Latin America Chapter was launched.  Organizations with smart card-related business interests in all Latin American countries and the Caribbean, plus any organization based in North America or internationally with interests in the Latin America markets, should contact Edgar Betts, Manager Business Development - Latin  America at 1-954-590-3795 or ebetts@smartcardalliance.org. Memberships are available for Leadership Council, General, Government, and Associate levels.

A recent report released by Frost & Sullivan called The Americas Smart Card Market Analysis projected microprocessor smart card shipments of 136.4 million in 2005, and with over a 59 percent annual growth rate projected through 2010.  The Latin American smart card market growth is due to many market factors including the migration of mobile telecommunications operators to GSM technology, the migration to EMV in the financial sector, the move to smart transit fare cards and new government and commercial secure identification initiatives.  Responding to these market factors, the Smart Card Alliance today announced the formation of a new Latin American chapter to bring together smart card suppliers, partners and customers in order to address the challenges facing smart card deployment in the region.  

“The Latin American smart card market is now emerging and could develop more rapidly than other markets by effectively learning from similar smart card initiatives and by forming business partnerships that can quickly deliver successful implementations,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance.   
  
The main mission of the Smart Card Alliance Latin American chapter is in line with the overall goal of the Alliance: to stimulate the understanding, adoption, use and widespread application of smart cards. The Alliance plans to use specific projects such as bi-lingual education programs, market research, advocacy, industry relations and open forums to keep Latin American chapter organization members connected to industry leaders and innovative thought.
  
“The Smart Card Alliance has played a valuable role in developing the U.S. market in both the public and private sector.  Our organization provides an educational and collaborative forum in which all of the stakeholders—manufacturers, issuers and end users—can work together to develop the cross-industry real-world solutions needed to deploy smart card systems.  Our organization is uniquely positioned to bring a collective energy and focus to this technology in Latin America,” said Vanderhoof.

Next Steps:

The Advisory Board of the Latin America Chapter met on December 1, 2005 to discuss the marketing plan for 2006, including the review of important conference events where the chapter will deliver conference educational sessions, member exhibitor pavilions, and promote the educational mission of the chapter.  The group also discussed a proposed membership expansion program and outlined a “government to government information exchange” to bring government representatives together to share information about smart card-related initiatives.

THE SCALA web site is being developed to include company profiles of members, news items, industry statistics and reports, and an event calendar of upcoming conference events and SCALA educational programs.  The chapter will be represented at Security Week Brasil – Sao Paulo (March 27-29); Cards Brasil 2006 – Sao Paulo (April 3-5), and Expo Seguridad – Mexico City (April 26-28).  The chapter also announced its “Government to Government Information Exchange Program”, a way for member companies to sponsor a government official in Latin America to be introduced and share knowledge and information with a U.S. government official serving in a similar capacity.   

The Foundation Members of the Latin America Chapter include Oberthur Card Systems, Rede Ponto Certo, Axalto, Visa International, Daruma Orga, Identification Technology Group (ITG), Atmel, STMicroelectronics, and Fargo Electronics.

How to get involved:

If you would like to get involved in any of the Latin American activities listed above or wish to be added to the contact list for future announcements, please send an email to info@smartcardalliance.org.

Council and Task Force Report

Alliance Members:   Participation in all current Councils is open to any Smart Card Alliance member who wishes to contribute to the Council projects.   If you are interested in participating in any of the active councils, please contact Cathy Medich .  

Transportation Council

• The Council held an in-person meeting on Feb. 23-24 in Salt Lake City, UT, to develop the 2006 Council work plan.   This meeting had excellent Council member participation, with 46 individuals registered to attend the event.   Additional information about the 2006 Council projects will be distributed via the Council email list.
• The Transportation Council completed its first project, a white paper on smart cards and parking.   The white paper is available for download from the Smart Card Alliance web site at http://www.smartcardalliance.org/alliance_activities/parking.cfm.
• If you are interested in participating in the Transportation Council, please contact the Council chair, Paul Korczak ( pakorcz@nyct.com ), vice chairs, Chris Cipperly ( ccipperly@wmata.com ) and David deKozan ( david.dekozan@cubic.com ), or Cathy Medich.  

Physical Access Council

• The Physical Access Council completed briefings with the OMB and GSA, using the FIPS 201 issues presentation completed in December.   Council members are also participating in a joint committee with the IAB, PAIIWG and SIA to work on the compilation of a joint list of FIPS 201 PACS issues.
• The Council has several active projects reviewing and compiling industry comments on documents - the draft SP800-73-1, NISTIR 7284 and draft DHS spec for the IDMS to PAC API.
• If you are interested in participating in the Physical Access Council, please contact Council Chair, Bob Merkert ( rmerkert@scmmicro.com ), Vice Chair, Dwayne Pfeiffer ( dwayne.pfeiffer@ngc.com ) or Cathy Medich.  

Healthcare Council

• The Healthcare Council completed and published its first white paper, "Smart Card Applications in the U.S. Healthcare Industry," describing the value that smart cards deliver in a variety of U.S. healthcare applications.   The white paper reviews key challenges that the U.S. healthcare provider industry faces and examines the key drivers for implementing smart card-based systems to address these challenges.   Lead contributors included representatives from:  ACI Worldwide, Axalto, Competech Smart Card Solutions, EMIDASI, Healthmeans, Hitachi America Ltd., Lockheed Martin, Oberthur Card Systems, OTI America, PrivaMed, Inc., Sharp, TecSec, Uniliance Health, U.S. Dept. of Defense, VeriFone, and Visa USA . The white paper is available for download from the Smart Card Alliance web site at http://www.smartcardalliance.org/alliance_activities/healthcare_Industry.cfm.  
• If you are interested in participating in the Healthcare Council, please contact Council co-chairs, Frank Avignone ( favignone@healthmeans.com ), Paul Davis ( pdavis3@mindspring.com ) or Cathy Medich.  

Contactless Payments Council

• The Contactless Payments Council held its first webinar on Feb. 22 nd , "Contactless Payments: A New Era of Payments for Retailers," in partnership with the National Retail Federation STORES Magazine. Over 300 people registered for this webinar to learn from the experiences of KeyBank, Wawa and Chase Paymentech in implementing contactless payments.
• If you are interested in participating in the Contactless Payments Council, please contact Cathy Medich .  

Identity Council

• The Identity Council completed and published its first white paper, "The Top 10 Hot Identity Issues."   This white paper provides a high-level discussion of the top 10 challenges associated with current identity systems.   It covers a range of topics and offers perspectives on how the most critical identity issues can be addressed with policy, process, and technology solutions.      Lead contributors included representatives from:  Axalto, Inc., Booz Allen Hamilton, Datacard Group, Fargo Electronics, Hitachi America Ltd., IBM, International Biometric Industry Association, Saflink, Texas Instruments and Viisage.   The white paper is available for download from the Smart Card Alliance web site at http://www.smartcardalliance.org/alliance_activities/top_10_identity.cfm.
• If you are interested in participating in the Identity Council, please contact Cathy Medich.  

Other Councils

• If you are interested in forming or participating in an Alliance council, contact Cathy Medich. Click here to download a description of the council structure, proposal process and council interest feedback form.

New Members

Identita Technologies, Inc. – Toronto, CANADA  www.identita.com
Membership Level: General
Contact:  Rocky Stefano, CEO
Description: Provider of identification solutions based on the principles of dynamic acoustic recognition
 
Peppercoin, Inc. – Walthan, MA  www.peppercoin.com
Membership Level : General
Contact: David Stone, Board Advisor
Description: Enables profitable new business models for low priced digital content and physical goods
 
Scheidt & Bachmann USA, Inc. – Burlington, MA  01803  www.scheidt-bachmann.com
Membership Level – General
Contact: Lisa Bucci, Director Strategic Initiatives
Description: Provides automated access control and revenue collection systems for the transit and parking industry worldwide

Alliance in the News

The Alliance has an active communications program to promote industry messages in business, vertical market, and technology publications.   Coverage results from both Alliance press releases and interviews with publications writing articles about smart cards.   Selected recent coverage is shown below with links to online articles.

• Card Technology , 2/1/06, "Closing the Gap: Will Banks and Transit Create a Common Contactless Card?" [link not available]
• CardLine , 1/13/06, "Report Touts Benefits of Smart Cards in Parking" [link not available]
• Contactless News , 2/9/06, "New Smart Card Alliance paper addresses benefits of smart cards for healthcare applications" [ link to article ]
• Federal Computer Week , 1/24/06, "Identity card specs still in play" [ link to article ]  
• Greensheet , 2/9/06, "Smart cards advance in Canada" [ link to article ]  
• The Houston Chronicle , 1/26/06, "QI Systems Inc. Begins Shipment of $225,000 in Orders to Montreal Customer" [ link to article ]  
• MedGadget , 1/24/06, "Smart Cards for Patient Histories" [ link to article ]  
• The Parking Network , 1/16/06, "New Smart Card Alliance White Paper Addresses Parking System Applications" [ link to article ]  
• Secure ID News , 2/14/06, "Smart Card Alliance forms Identity Council to increase awareness and education on identity issues and technology" [ link to article ]  
• Security Document World , 2/14/06, "Smart Card Alliance forms Identity Council" [ link to article ]  
• Security Info Watch , 1/13/06, "SIA Reports Back on HSPD-12 Forum It Held with Smart Card Alliance" [ link to article ]  
• Security Info Watch , 2/13/06, " Are You Ready for HSPD-12/FIPS 201 Access Control?" [ link to article ]  
• STORES Magazine , 2/06, "Is No-Touch the Right Touch?" [link not available]
• The Washington Examiner , 2/10/06, "Sprawl and Crawl" [ link to article ]  
• Washington Technology , 2/13/06, "The HSPD-12 opportunity" [ link to article ]

Web Site News

NEW additions to the Smart Card Alliance web site

• New Identity Council white paper, "The Top 10 Hot Identity Topics"
• New Healthcare Council white paper, "Smart Card Applications in the U.S. Healthcare Industry"
• Contactless payments webinar registration
• 5th Annual Smart Cards in Government Conference information, with registration open
• New Transportation Council white paper, "Smart Cards and Parking"
• 2005 Fall Annual Conference proceedings in the members-only web site

January 2006 web statistics

• 48,818 visitor sessions for the month
• 1,575 visitor sessions per day
• 287,473 total page views for the month
• 96,146 Industry News items viewed
• 21,793 Card Reader Catalog items displayed

If you have any suggestions on content that you'd like to see on the Alliance web site, please send them to info@smartcardalliance.org .

Copyright 2006-2007· Smart Card Alliance · 191 Clarksville Rd. · Princeton Junction, NJ 08550
Phone: (800) 556-6828 info@smartcardalliance.org · www.smartcardalliance.org