HONG KONG — Eurosmart confirms that over 6 billion microprocessor based smart secure devices will be shipped this year. Double digit growth in the telecom, banking and government segments is set to continue in 2012. With the growing number of online services and the advent of the global internet, Eurosmart sees a clear trend of increasing security demands in addition to smart card based applications. According to Eurosmart, the smart security industry is well positioned to provide convenient and secure solutions and services for these new markets.
CARTES in Asia came to an end 29th after 2 days of the event since March 28th at AsiaWorld-Expo, Hong Kong. Over 110 exhibitors and more than 70 speakers from across the world converged at the event to showcase and discuss hot topics including NFC & Contactless applications, E-transactions & E-banking, Mobile payments, ID and Government Security, RFID and the Internet. More than 3,000 decision makers from the banking, telecom, retail, transportation and security sectors from Asia Pacific are expected to attend CARTES in Asia exhibition and conference.
The Asian Card Summit kick-started the conference on the first day of and featured a discussion by six top-executives from Gemalto, Oberthur Technologies, China Union Pay, Eurosmart, Ingenico and Watchdata on smart card trends and forecasts.
Directly after the Summit the Winner of The Asian SESAMES Award was revealed. The SESAMES rewards the most innovative product or application developed for the Asian Pacific market in the field of smart cards, digital security, identification, secure transactions, and contactless technology. The finalists were GO-TRUST, Oberthur Technologies, KEOLABS, Smart Packaging Solutions and Watchdata Technologies.
Watchdata Technologies won the Asian SESAMES Award for the second time in three years. It brought its breakthrough mobile payment solution, called SIMpass-SC, which transforms any existing mobile phone handset into a full-function NFC device for this year. The SIMpass-SC technology embeds a secure element; an active front end and an antenna into a single dual-interface SIM card form factor. This provides one of the most elegant and practical ways to deploy the widely accepted NFC technology in mobile phone handsets in any existing market; from highly developed urban centers, remotest locations, and even in regions with few banks and very poor financial infrastructure.
SESAMES Award winner, Watchdata's SIMpass-SC
Michael Yu, President of International Business at Watchdata said “The SIMpass-SC solution is a significant improvement in mobile payment technology, and we feel privileged to help advance the frontiers of knowledge in this market.”
Watchdata is known as a recognized pioneer in providing secure digital authentication and transaction solutions. They showcased its diversified portfolio of end-to-end smart payment solutions at the CARTES in Asia. It has been supplying its SIM card, transport card to Korean companies such as SK Telecom and Korea Smart Card Co., Ltd. It also has strategic partnership with Samsung. Watchdata is exclusive transport card suppler in Singapore and holds 50% of the transport card market in China and 10% of the global telecom market.
Exhibitors from mainland China, Hong Kong, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, UAE, United Kingdom and the US are due to participate in the exhibition.
BioSmart, a recognized smart card total solution provider in Korea showcased their special card such as 3D LENS card, LED card, mother-of-pearl card and real diamond embedded card. The 3D LENS card provides a three dimension floating feeling by causing the lens to highlight brightly in different areas of the card. The LED card is a light emission card with ultra fine LED integrating technology. It shines brilliantly when it touches the card reader.
BioSmart established in 1971 as the first MS card manufacturer in Korea. They were certified card manufacturers from Master Card and Visa in 1991. BioSmart was listed in KOSDAQ in 2000. Now BioSmart is supplying 5 international card companies such as AMEX, China Unionpay, JCB, Master card and Visa. BioSmart and its daughter company, Innerex which are the No.1 card manufactures in Korea, hold 60 percent of the Korean card market. BioSmart also produces National ID cards. All Thailand National ID cards have been made by BioSmart since 2010.
They are currently planning to expand their market to Europe. “We had showcased our smart card solution at CARTES Paris 2011 and saw the potential in the European market,” Henry Kang, general manager of overseas business team at BioSmart said. “We are working to open our branches in Poland, Sweden, Egypt and the Philippines.”
Gemalt, the world leading company in digital security from France was participate CARTES in Asia 2012. Gemalto announced its Allynis Trusted Service Manager (TSM) has won the “2011 Payment Industry Editor’s Choice of Excellent Products Award” awarded by PayNews from China.
TSM is a state-of-the-art servicing platform that combines banking grad security and interoperability for installation and management of secure mobile NFC services. TSM is being used in mobile NFC commercial deployments around the world to enable wireless operators, banks, transport companies and retailers to provide secure and scalable contactless services to their end users.
Gemalto has an unrivalled track record with over 50 NFC projects worldwide including the IDA national consortium in Singapore, ISIS and Chase in USA as well as Orange and Credit Agricole in France among others.
The Datacard Group from USA announced the availability of affordable SIM card personalization system, MPR3800 GSM card assurance system that measurably improves security and profitability. With one of the lowest cost-per-card ratios, the MPR3800 system features speeds of up to 3,400 cards-per-hour, a variety of smart card coupler option and double SIM card personalization capabilities.
Michael Weatherseed, security business event director of CARTES events, Comexposium said “after a successful second edition, CARTES in Asia is now established as a large-scale event dedicated to smart technologies in Asia-Pacific. The participation of major companies in the smart card industry, the quality of the audience for the conference, and the number of visitors coming from 61 countries has confirmed this event as one of the best in the region. The Asia-Pacific region is the most dynamic market in the world, regarding IC cards manufacturing, mobile devices usage, NFC applications and eID projects,”
“Hong Kong became the hub for the third year for local and international smart technology experts to meet and discuss trends in the smart technology industry. With a strong focus on Asia Pacific, CARTES in Asia promises to deliver a compelling and interesting event with adding more elements such as e-commerce, mobile payment and security payment in 2013, ” Mr. Weatherseed added.
