Executive Director's Letter

Dear members and friends of the Alliance,

As October turns into November and the autumn leaves change colors and fall from the trees, most people in America start to think about how they are going to celebrate their Thanksgiving dinner, enjoy a brief respite from the busy fall business cycle, and focus on how much turkey they will consume while watching football on television.  For the rest of the world who doesn’t share our November tradition of a mid-week overindulgence of food and family, autumn means something completely different.  November is the month of the Cartes & Identification conference in Paris.

I returned to Paris for my fifth consecutive year at this annual mega-smart-card-industry event.  I can count on three things each year when I arrive and prepare for the annual trek to the Parc d’Expositions de Paris where the Cartes conference is held.  First, I will be amazed at the number of people and exhibitors who mingle together non-stop from morning to late afternoon in the exhibition hall.  Just when I think that the size of the show has maxed out, I am surprised again that more people find a way to attend.  This year's attendance figures were over 21,000 people, with 68% of the attendees being international.  It further pleases me that an increasing number of industry movers and shakers from the United States -- from suppliers to end users -- find a way to get to Cartes and see what the excitement is about.  Second, I will be overwhelmed by the diversity of products and solutions on display in the expanding exhibition center.  All identification and payments technologies and applications are on display, ranging from chip vendors to terminal manufacturers to systems integrators to payments brands.  Also, as the IDentification component of the event grows, we are seeing more security and access technologies and solutions presented as well.  The third thing I can count on is that there will be some type of worker strike affecting our visit to Cartes.  For the second year in a row, a transit strike shut down the trains to the exhibition center and crippled the subway system within Paris.  For most events, a strike might keep scores of customers from attending the conference, but I have learned that the Cartes-faithful are a hearty breed.  People found creative ways to overcome the transportation challenges.  Like scores of others, I used a combination of commuting methods, from cabs to buses to crowded subway cars to long-distance walking, to get to the conference and back to our Paris hotel.  Cartes is too important and packed with too many opportunities to meet important people to be deterred by a labor dispute.  The Cartes experience makes me more determined than ever to use our partnership with SourceMedia to make the May 2008 CTST in Orlando a similar experience and to solidify the event's position as the premier smart card industry conference and exhibition for the Americas.  You will hear more from me about these efforts in future months.

Member Profile: HID Global, Latin America

This month, Smart Card Talk spoke with Humberto De la Vega, Vice President of Sales, Latin America and the Caribbean, for HID Global. 

1. What are your organization's main smart card initiatives?

The first initiative is multi-applications on a single card, enabled through our HID Connect™ program. HID Connect is the hardware and software partnership arm of HID Global Corporation.  Focused on positioning HID as a platform provider to help expand and support the new “ecosystem” that requires a single credential for many day-to-day applications, HID Connect promotes products, applications and solutions that use HID 13.56 MHz iCLASS® or MIFARE® and 125 kHz proximity technologies. HID Connect’s ultimate goal is to help end-users “do more than open the door” with their HID cards. Applications currently being developed through HID Connect include, but are not limited to, time and attendance, PC secure log-on, point-of-sale/cashless vending, biometrics, parking, arming/disarming of security alarm panels, electronic standalone, battery powered door locks, first responder/handheld products and intercom and other communication systems.

Another key smart card initiative involves promoting the convergence of logical and physical access, enabled through our Crescendo Series of smart cards. HID Global’s CrescendoTM card solutions incorporate multiple smart card technologies on a single card to meet customer requirements for both logical and physical access control. Available off-the-shelf, award-winning Crescendo cards are pre-initialized with on-card software providing out-of the-box support for thousands of Windows®-compatible logical access solutions from Microsoft® and other developers. Crescendo combines technologies, services and know-how to deliver a uniquely innovative solution from the industry’s trusted leader in access control.

Feature of the Month 

Business Case Challenges for Implementing Proximity Mobile Payments

Mobile payments implementations are still in their infancy, with business models still being defined and tested through numerous pilots in the market.  The business case for proximity mobile payments is complicated.  There are, of course, the typical concerns about the rate at which both consumers and merchants will adopt a new payment type.  However, the fundamental barrier to widespread adoption of proximity mobile payments is the requirement that multiple players cooperate.  Many of these players claim both a relationship with the customer and a share of transaction revenue.  Any new business model this complex faces considerable challenges. 

During the next several years, thousands more merchants in the United States are expected to be able to accept contactless payments.  However, certain critical requirements must be met by all stakeholders before high volumes of consumers can actually start using mobile phones for payment at a physical POS.

Stakeholders

There are a wide variety of stakeholders in a proximity mobile payments system.  Depending on the implementation scenario, stakeholders will change and additional stakeholders with varying degrees of involvement may also be involved. 

Stakeholders may include:

• Consumers, who use the contactless mobile payment devices
• Issuers, who issue mobile payment capabilities and support easy management of proximity mobile payments
• Merchants, who accept contactless payments
• Acquirers, who support merchant acceptance of contactless payments
• Mobile operators, who ensure a supply of mobile phones with NFC technology and support payment services on their networks
• Payment networks, who set standards and promote acceptance by all parties throughout the network
• Chip and handset manufacturers, who support branded financial applications
• SIM/payment software developers, who support branded financial applications
• Trusted service manager, including OTA personalization bureaus who provision the payment application to the memory of the phone
• Issuing and acquiring payment processors, who process payments acting on behalf of acquiring and issuing banks and who are involved in almost every case
• Proprietary payment application providers, who offer payment applications for specific services (for example, transit agencies' fare payment systems).
• Specialty application provider, who can add additional value to proximity mobile payments (e.g., PayPal enabling person-to-person payments)

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