Anyone who has received a new style Visa Debit card from their bank
will probably have noticed a new feature on it – a contactless payment
facility. This allows low-value transactions – less than €15 in Ireland –
to be conducted simply by passing the card over a machine reader.
There
is no need to insert the card into a reader or even touch the reader
with the card and no PIN is required. It’s quick and easy and makes
things a lot more convenient both for cardholders and retailers.
This
new payment mechanism is enabled by a microchip and antenna embedded
inside the card itself. The chip and antenna receive power transmitted
by the machine reader and they transmit the information required for the
payment back to it.
This is the same technology now in use in
passports worldwide. Those queues at passport control in Dublin Airport
could soon be a thing of the past if the hardware to read passports
electronically is installed.
This would allow everyone with a
modern passport simply to wave it over a reader with all their
information appearing on screen in front of the person at the
checkpoint. No need to hand a passport over for a person to scan it or
physically read it again, making the process a lot quicker and easier.
But
there are some drawbacks to the new technology, and Irish company
AmaTech is at the forefront of developing solutions to them. These
issues include difficulties encountered with the actual insertion of the
electronic components into the cards or documents, and problems with
the connection between the chip and the antenna.
“Our founder
and chief executive David Finn has written over 50 patents in this area
and wrote the original patent for electronic card inlays back in the
1990s,” says AmaTech financial controller Mark Rafferty.
“The
company is structured around his background and we have two divisions –
an inlay production facility in Galway which develops and manufactures
products for the electronic inlay industry and a machine engineering
business in the Bavarian Alps which offers proprietary engineering
expertise for production platform development for the industry.”
The
German division is very important as it means that the company has the
capacity to design and develop the machinery required to manufacture and
implement its own inventions and innovations. “Research and development
are at the core of the company,” says Rafferty.
“Having the two
divisions means we can work with the production and machine engineering
guys at the same time. For example, if a new bank card comes out with a
new type of electronic inlay inside it our engineering group can look
at that to design the machine required to manufacture it. This is
important to the industry which wants to be able to manufacture the
cards as efficiently as possible.”
Where AmaTech really scores is its innovative technology for the new contactless payment cards. As Rafferty explains,Which Air purifier
is right for you? the new cards incorporate a wire antenna that runs
around the card near its edge and is connected to the chip which
contains all of the payment and account information.
Normal usage, however, presents certain difficulties for this arrangement.
“Modern
cards are dual interface cards,” he points out. “They have the
traditional chip and PIN payment system where you put the card into the
reader and enter your PIN.
“They also have RFID [radio frequency
identifier] technology built in to allow for contactless payment.
Contactless payment doesn’t require a PIN and just involves the
cardholder passing it over or near a reader. This speeds up transactions
enormously. It has been estimated that a standard chip and PIN payment
takes about 40 seconds to execute but a contactless payment takes about
15.”
This is very important for businesses with high volumes of
relatively low-value transactions and the new technology is already in
widespread use in popular fast-food chains and coffee shops in the US.
It is also gaining in popularity in Europe and many Irish retailers are
installing the technology.
The problem with normal usage is the
way people use the cards. “They put the cards in wallets where they get
bent and putting them in ATMs and so on causes wear and tear as well,”
Rafferty explains. “Over time this can break the connection between the
antenna and the chip and this means the contactless payments function
will no longer operate and people will have to replace cards with all
the inconvenience and expense that causes. We have enhanced the quality
and reliability of cards with our reactive coupling technology which
removes the need to interconnect the outer antenna with the chip. This
means that the cards are much better able to withstand the stresses of
normal usage.”
Rafferty points out that a major liability change
is due to occur in the US in October 2015. This will fundamentally
change the status of old-style magnetic stripe cards. Currently, if any
card – chip and PIN or magnetic stripe only – is physically used for
payment at a retail outlet and the payment subsequently turns out to
have been fraudulent the card issuer is liable for the loss. The
cardholder and the retailer bear no liability.
From October
2015, however, the retailer will be liable for losses on magnetic stripe
cards. This will create a marked reluctance among retailers to accept
anything but smart cards for cashless payments.Nitrogen Controller and
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with good quality. Similar changes are expected to follow around the
world and this is driving the rapid replacement of the hundreds of
millions of cards in issue globally.
For the electronic
financial markets alone, US market research and analysis firm Frost
Sullivan estimates that the number of electronic inlays being issued per
annum for use in payment cards will grow from about 180 million in 2010
to more than 1.3 billion in 2020. In the passport market the
International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which is responsible
for regulating passport use globally, envisages that all ICAO-compliant
passports will be using this technology by 2020 – that’s a market of
billions of passport holders around the world.How cheaply can I build a solar power systems?Have a look at all our custom bobbleheads models starting at 59.90US$ with free proofing.
IMS
Research forecasts concur. These put the number of financial payment
cards in use around the world at roughly 11 billion by 2017 with about
half of them smart cards. By that stage, one in every three new cards
issued will incorporate contactless technology.
Rafferty says
the company expects to be in full production at its Spiddal, Co Galway,
base in 2013.Compare prices and buy all brands of solar panel
for home power systems and by the pallet. “All of the main card issuers
in the world will be our major customers. We also work with the card
companies to resolve problems they might be experiencing in the
manufacturing process. Our sales team have all been in the industry for a
long time and know what the issues are and we have already got some
very interesting projects to work on from the industry. Another major
market for us is likely to be national ID cards.
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