The past few years have demonstrated tremendous advances in smart card technologies. Chips utilized today are more economical than just a few years ago, while technological innovations have resulted in chips that possess enhanced processing power and larger memory. The resulting scenario enables cost-effective smart card solutions for a broader array of real world challenges.
Smart cards today achieve much more than their original application of replacing cash and coins. Smart cards grant access to secure areas, confirm a person’s identity via biometrics, and retain large quantities of personal data (such as medical records.)
More important than these specific applications are the recent trends in how the smart cards are used – to facilitate the exchange of information between customer and proprietor, which is much broader than the concluding financial transaction.
Today’s smart cards help consumers maximize their relationships with businesses, and help businesses reward their best customers. The trend towards multiple application cards that provide tangible rewards for both consumers and businesses is accelerating. Consumers want to use the same card to pay for their parking, to board the train, to open the secure-access door at work, to provide PC/Internet access, and to go shopping over lunch.
More important than the specific functions the cards perform, consumers and businesses both want smart cards that are fast, reliable, convenient, and can be updated to include new functions as they become available.
