Monday, March 1, 2010

Smart Card Alliance February Newsletter Released

Smart Card Talk : February 2010 : Volume 15 : Number 2

Executive Director’s Letter »	Member Profile »	Feature of the Month »
From the Alliance Office »	Event Calendar »	Members in the News »

Executive Director’s Letter

Dear members and friends of the Alliance,

February 2010 has been an active month on many fronts for the U.S. smart card industry. It has been so busy, we couldn’t stop long enough to get you the February monthly newsletter until early March! What has been so important to keep everyone busy? The answer is summed up in three letters–EMV. Fresh off the heavily viewed webinar (over 317 viewers) that the Smart Card Alliance presented in January, Top Ten Reasons U.S. Should Consider EMV, it seems as if the discussion really started to heat up in February.

The month began with an announcement that some people feared might shake the confidence of the entire payments industry. Researcher Ross Anderson and his colleagues at Cambridge University declared that “chip & PIN was broken” as a result of the discovery of a surprise flaw in the way EMV chip cards communicate with chip & PIN terminals when offline PIN verification is requested. Anderson and his U.K. security experts were deemed heroes by the hacker community, but their claims that this flaw was a serious problem for EMV issuers were quickly rebuked by the U.K. Card Association, EMVCo and other industry experts. However, the report raised attention about the prospect of chip cards in the U.S. The fact that this attack did not involve the security of the chip itself and that this fraud is also detectable by the industry’s systems, did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm among U.S. industry stakeholders for either contact or contactless EMV chip for the U.S. market.

Thales e-Security Inc. – Interview with Jose Diaz, Director, Technical and Strategic Business Development

This month Smart Card Talk spoke with Jose Diaz, Director, Technical and Strategic Business Development, Thales e-Security Inc. Jose has worked with the Thales (formerly Racal) group for over 30 years. Currently, he works on enterprise and government global strategy focusing on payment systems. He has over 10 years experience in payment systems security including five years in a technical sales capacity for the Latin America and Caribbean region. His background includes over 17 years working in product development and communication system design with four patents for his work in digital communications. Jose holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Miami.

Feature of the Month

Prepaid Cards and the Transit Industry

For the past several years, transit agencies have been moving away from cash-based fare collection systems to contactless smart card-based systems. In most cases, the cards issued have been closed loop payment cards; that is, cards that can only be used to pay transit fares. Recently, in an effort to both reduce the costs associated with administering these systems and make the systems more convenient for customers, transit agencies are considering accepting contactless bank cards at points of entry, eliminating the need for customers to buy a transit-specific card.

As banks continue the process of converting credit and debit cards to include contactless features, a large number of transit riders will be able to use these new cards on transit systems. However, transit agencies have a long-standing mandate to serve all constituencies in their service areas. Any movement to adopt financial industry products, such as bank cards, would therefore require that all riders be able to obtain such a card conveniently. Because some segments of a transit agency’s ridership may not qualify for a credit or debit card or may be uninterested in establishing a relationship with a bank, transit agencies should consider promoting the use of prepaid cards that can operate like a bank card but be available to anyone.

Congratulations to the first group of LEAP members who have successfully completed the requirements for professional accreditation as Certified Smart Card Industry Professionals.
	Deborah Baxley, Keypoint Edgar Betts, Smart Card Alliance Dana Blegen, Paragon Application Systems John Fessler, Exponent, Inc. Dale Grogan, LifeMed Card, Inc. Bryan Ichikawa, Unisys Brad McGoran, Exponent, Inc. John McKeon, IBM Barry Mosteller, Oberthur Technologies Ken Pantin, The Bank of New York Mellon Neville Pattinson, Gemalto Myles Roberts, FAA Michael H. Smith, Montner & Associates, Inc.
Click here for more information about LEAP and CSCIP certification program.