From the cluster PICOM, Natural Security is accompanied by shareholders and is set on EuraTechnologies of Lille. His main idea is to give the user the opportunity to be the only carrier to pay its authentication without presenting or manipulating a carrier, an innovation in the field of payment and supermarkets.

Natural Security develops a strong authentication device in order to facilitate and accelerate the payment of proximity and distance.

It gathers several technologies: the biometry and the contactless. The proposed application combines the simplicity, speed and security regardless of location and the amount, without having to use their means of payment or enter their PIN.
A project of this scale requires partners in the retail, banking and industry, several banks answered positively at this ambitious project, and others will follow without hesitation.

CPS Technologies, subsidiary of ABnote Europe, has been selected to ensure the supply and card personalization.
The challenge for CPS Technologies is to conduct a close and daily interaction with the banks institutions, considering that they have for each of them various constraints and way of operation.

Natural Security has been able to trust ABnote Europe and CPS Technologies, and we wish them a good result and a very bright future!

The last few weeks have been fertile in news around wallets and Mobile Payments. Many scheme providers or issuers are building solutions to gain market share of this potential huge market. (ISIS, VISA, Buyster and many JV….) M_commerce will become the de facto new 21st century network for eCommerce and digital goods. New solutions will allow users to be able to send money to peers or merchants through mobile phone.

All these new solution and new players are working to redefine payment schemes where existing players such as VISA, Mastercard, Paypal will be challenged.

Usage is now the keyword for the deployment of these solutions, since technical challenges have more or less already been addressed. So it means that consumers will find payment solution adapted to their usage and not the opposite where they have to adapt themselves to financial institution.

Mobile phone will be the key element on this payment scheme based on the fact that there are more mobile phone users than banked users.

France was one of the leader to test Mobile payment (Payer Mobile) and after the pilot in Nice, 9 cities are now going to run Mobile Payment experience in 2011. France is also hosting many universities and R&D start up companies which represent a very high potential of knowledge and innovation. Also experimentation is on the way in Europe.

Yesterday as pioneers, Europe is facing challenges with US companies for this market which represents more than $21 Billions. Known for its pragmatism, the US model is challenging our traditional approach, creating a very active nest for new models incubation. The good news is that this war will benefit both business epxerts and the end-user, who will finally be able to choose competitve solutions to answer simple needs.

As a global company focused on innovation, ABnote Europe is participating to these challenges with original solutions and participated to the last conference on this matter “US meet EU on mobile payment”.

6th Forum of card technologies in Africa has been a major success, his has been a true platform of technology and business card, due specially to the strong involvement of the Interbank Electronic Banking Centers in the regions.

As a moderator Philippe Delanoue was pleased to support this event “Cards Africa 2011”, a topic that he knows very well “Security and Authentication: controlling the risks of a contact changing market”.

Testimonial of Charline Allard from Development Business Europe to ABnote:

“If the fraud is still increasing today, especially with the development of remote payments (internet..) Several ways are exist to use strong authentication and proper regulation. Unfortunately the fraud will always exist and for example in Morocco it is 0.05%, while Visa and Mastercard allow a fraud rate of 0.35%.

It is also important to let the market develop before considering security Process.

On the legal and regulatory side, it is necessary to think about infrastructure before the technology. The importance of an adjustable monitoring framework to different stages of steps of development to the payment instrument. The role of power-cons central banks must be accepted and understood by operators who want to develop a way of payment. ”

These three-day conferences were to match the size of the continent! ABnote Europe is ready to repeat the process and gives you an appointment for the 7th edition of “Cards Africa 2012”.

Mobile World Congress

If there’s a congress that really deserves the description “worldwide”, it is Mobile World Congress. I am used to exhibiting at CARTES every year, with its never ending stream of presentations, demos and meetings, but the mobile industry has taken  it to a whole other level with MWC.
Mobile has started to impact the cards world and as my role in R+D means I have to stay on top of what’s new in payments, ticketing and loyalty, I set off to find out what the booming mobile industry has in store for us.

Why does mobile matter?

It’s everywhere. In 2010 there were 5.2 billions subscribers worldwide.

There are more mobile phone subscribers than bank account, radio, tv, computer and credit card owners. There may be as many as 1.7 billion credit cards in circulation but there are 3 times more mobile subscribers.

Ignoring the mobile market, especially given the much talked about potential that Near Field Communication brings to the cards world in particular, is not advisable.

So what did I pick up that’s of interest?

Mobile and multimedia

At first it was quite hard to get an objective impression of all the demos. Everything shines and moves, catching your eye and I felt quite literally bewildered.
I still have an old cathodic screen TV (no, it’s not just black and white) and my mobile phone is a 3 year old relic that just about does web browsing.
So viewing a hi-definition 3D movie on a 1.5 meter flat screen, run from a device as big as my morning toast was a HUGE shock. The big manufacturers were everywhere (NVidia, Qualcom, Intel, IBM) and are investing heavily in this area.

If there was any doubt that next gen mobile phones will be used for everything except maybe phoning, I’ve seen confirmation first hand. Every new phone, whether it’s  Android, Bada, Windows Phone7, or another has a social network application on the home screen. It left me feeling that the reason that Microsoft announced, on a giant 10 meter screen, that the next release of Windows phone 7 would have native support for Twitter was simply because if they hadn’t their new product would be dead in the water.

So your multimedia terminal (no point in calling it a phone anymore ) is not only your trusted GPS, your wonderful personal assistant and a fantastic platform for reading or playing games and music but it’s also where you keep your friends If you don’t have a smart phone running Facebook you might as well be on another planet.

The other hot topic in mobile applications was advertising. When you consider the potential market size, it’s no wonder that the ad industry sees  mobile  as the next eldorado. With couponing, content management platforms and enrolment systems, everything is in place to overwhelm us in the coming months.  French company MobileTag’s recent success raising 6 million € in funding is a good illustration of that.

So what’s in it for financial services organisations?

This was one of the main reasons I visited Barcelona – to find out what’s in store for our financial services customers with a specific eye on  NFC. And after 3 days looking round all the applications, my feelings are mixed at best.

There were some moves in the right direction from a handset perspective, with Google,Samsung and RIM pushing NFC handsets, and  very insistent rumors about the next iPhone / iPad. Other strong indication came from VISA who had  a booth there to promote NFC payment, including bridge technologies (MicroSD cards and iphone cases) from Device Fidelity.

There was some encouraging feedback from pilots and it seems that a full ecosystem for payments is finally evolving covering the end to end enrolment and management of the customer and applications. But in comparison with other areas like advertising it paled into insignificance.

Wandering round I asked a number of handset manufacturers about their plans for NFC and to be honest, most of them didn’t know about NFC at all or had no immediate plans.

Quick Summary

So it appears that the future of mobile isn’t really about payment. The overriding trend is about communication, networking and leisure before anything else.

And the biggest challenge for NFC will be for the main service providers to work out a business model; the technical solutions will follow.

We’ve been doing some thinking and planning recently; looking at where the smart card market is going and defining our role in it. And one of the things that we’ve been talking about a lot is this business of being “technology independent”.We’ve debated the pros and cons of it internally and thought we’d share some of our thoughts on it with you.

So what do we mean by technology independent? In the smart card world it means simply that we don’t make our own chip. We use chip modules that come from our suppliers. It’s more than a simple supplier/buyer relationship because we have to work really closely together. We keep the chip manufacturers updated on customer needs and product strategy; they keep us updated on advances in chip technology and what this means for the products they are able to offer.

So why do we persist with this approach? We’ve been in the market of secure data processing for over two hundred years. We’ve been in the European smart card market for 25 years. We could have entered the chip world by now. Here are 3 reasons why we haven’t and won’t:

1.       Choice
2.       Choice
3.       Choice

Choice to offer the platform that really does what our customers need it to do – not a work around based on having to sell the latest mask that we’ve spent R+D time and money on developing.

Choice to offer dual sourcing. If there’s a security problem with one chip, it’s easy for us to switch to another.  We work with more than 30  different masks and 5 different semi conductors.

Choice to work with a more competitively priced product.

Some people would argue that his impacts our ability to be a market leader. Without our own chip products aren’t we destined to be a follower?  Far from it. Offering issuance services alone, we were the first in France to bring dual interface EMV cards to the market,  in 2007 (Visa) and 2008 (MasterCard). We were also the first to personalise translucent and reflective cards that were GCB certified for the French market.

Every so often we go round this loop. It’s important to review decisions that we’ve made and remake them in the light of where the industry is going. This time round we spent  quite a bit of time thinking about the trends in payments, ticketing and loyalty and how many of the transactions are moving into the on line world; whether it’s for home ticket purchase or mobile coupon redemption. And it made us even more convinced that the best thing we can do is remain technology independent and focus our R+D efforts on the services around these core applications. That’s what will enable us to help our customers get the most out of this evolving online space.

But what do you think? Let us know!

I was lucky enough to be one of the 2,500 directors who took part in the “Fete de l’Entreprise” on Monday 31 January.  Organised by “Le Progres Group” in association with “CGPME” (General Confederation of Small and Medium Sized Businesses in France) and 9 other partners, the event recognises the tenacity of business leaders who are surviving the economic crisis. The theme for the evening was Realism and Optimism:

Source : Le Progrès

Realism which comes from the fact that most small and medium sized businesses have no choice but to battle against the difficult economic reality we face.

And Optimism because the only way through this, for everyone in business, is to find the resources and means to develop or rework how they do things.

Francois Turcas, boss of CGPME Rhone added a humorous note to the evening, recalling St. Augustin’s words: “Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.” On a more corporate note he said “The crisis is still here but there are good reasons for hope as long as we adapt, evolve and share”.
Watch the video clic here

And I agree with him on this. The business directors who received recognition all demonstrated a strong ability to fight back and develop their business and I was proud to be among them.  As I said when I received the award, there would have been no individual award for me had it not been for the commitment of the team I work with. As always I am keen to emphasise the importance of commitment and engagement from everyone at CPS Technologies.

A complete list of the winners is below:

Entrepreneur of the year Award - Prize given by Jean-Christophe LAROSE, CEO of Groupe Cardinal

to Philippe DELANOUE CPS Technologies, an ABnote Europe Group company

International Award – Prize given by Jean-Jack QUEYRANNE, Rhône-Alpes Region President
to Xavier PICCHIOLI, managing director of Exo International

Innovation Award – Prize given by Pascal JACQUESSON, managing director of Keolis Lyon
to Bruno BONNELL from Robopolis company

Environment Award- Prize given by André KIENER, Commercial Director of EDF Entreprises Rhône-Alpes Auvergne
to Laurence HUMENNY, Gérante de l’établissement Bio Motel

Companies Societal Liability Award - Prize given by Jean Yves GUYON, General Director of Apicil
to Jean-Michel BERJAUD and Olivier CANONE, associated directors  of Alteractive

Handing over business Award – Prize given by Claude BLANCHET, Interregional Director of Caisse des Dépôts
to M. BOUCAUD-MAITRE from Chocolat Voisin

Small Business Award – Prize given by Jean-Marc JAUMOUILLE, professional techniques director of Fiducial
to Anne GODDET from Mayo Parasol

Best Hopeful Award – Prize given by Denis DE BENAZE, General Director of IDRAC Lyon
to Frédéric FORETTI from Biossun

Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award- Prize given by Jean-Luc DUFLOT, Network Director for LCL
to Françoise SAVASTA from IBEP-EB.

2011 looks like it’s going to be a busy year for us.

With the announcement of the convergence of payments and ticketing in some markets and significant noise about NFC enabled mobile payments in others, we’re looking forward to an increased pace of change and to helping our customers get the most out of developments in applications and technologies.

And in order to do this, we realise we need to expand our sales team. So if you come from one of our core sectors (payments, ticketing, loyalty and ID), like being out and about with customers. A LOT, and want to be part of a growing market and team, then we might just be the right place for you. You don’t necessarily need to come from the smart card world but a good understanding of at least one of our vertical markets is probably necessary in order for you to feel confident. The role will involve a fair amount of travel, so we are open to where you live; we have people based in France, the Czech Republic and the UK. The ability to speak English plus one other European language would be helpful too.

If you’re interested, or know someone who might be, get in touch for more details by emailing us at  marketing@abnote.eu or hitting the talk to us button below.

Season’s Greetings from the ABnote Europe team. We wish you the very best for 2011!

We have had an exciting year. We hope it has been a good one for you too and we look forward to catching up with you in the New Year.

 If the video does not play when you click on it, please click here

I attended the Identity and Financial Services round table yesterday, hosted by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI). From a product marketing perspective I’m interested in understanding what (if anything) financial services organisations are going to do about offering identity services and what we can do – from a cards and applications point of view – to support them in this.

The first of a series of discussions, it was inevitably broad in scope. It felt a little as though someone had thrown a sack of ID gifts onto the table. The moderator started by pulling out a few easy to reach packages at the top and then we scrambled around half opening some, discarding them for others with a shinier wrapping, squashing some a bit in the process. But it felt like the right approach for the first session; a little unstructured, it allowed many of the main issues to come to the surface.

As it would be impossible to write up the flow of the discussion, I’ve pulled out a few points that seem (to me) to help frame what we’re talking about and that will undoubtedly be developed over the next few sessions.

What’s wrong with Identity?

This was the title of the discussion and the short answer seems to be “Everything. And that’s not the half of it”. ID veteran Dave Birch of Consult Hyperion made the point very early on that identity is even more broken than we think it is, because we only see the part that concerns us. It seems important to make this point at the start, because it needs to be part of the solution. Dave advocates an “infrastructural solution” saying quite clearly that not having an integrated solution for retail, government, financial services and health etc… is a BAD idea.

Some useful folders for filing discussion

Robin Wilton of Gartner made a useful observation early on, saying the question of identity suffers from a meta-problem;  everyone comes at it from their own perspective. And he offered 4 categories to help us establish a relationship between the various types of comment:
Philosophical                categorised by questions like “what is ID anyway”
Strategic                    once you’ve decided what it is, people always want to discuss the strategic issues
Implementation          how do you do it
Technology                  what technology do you use.

For clarity, he gave an excellent illustration of the difference between implementation and technology, talking about the payments authentication service Verified by Visa. While the implementation, from a use point of view is appalling (unclear sign up process, clumsy password based authentication which inevitably many people forget) the technology (in terms of what cryptography they use) is flawless. Maybe I’ll use these 4 categories for write ups of future sessions.

We can learn from other countries

Another scene setting point made by Dave Birch was that the different responses to different identity problems are many and varied and we should look further afield than the UK when trying to solve the puzzle. Some interesting illustrations were cited:
Brazil         where the banks issue government certificates on their EMV cards
Sweden     where the government allows its citizens to use bank issued cards to authenticate themselves for government services. It was felt that the success of this scheme was quite dependent on two key points:
1 – there is no liability issue for the banks, they don’t carry the risk for any misuse relating to government services
2 – strong privacy protection, meaning the banks cannot share details of their customer’s activity.

It seems that the UK government has already started to learn some of these lessons.  A representative from the government (apologies for no name, I will update if/when I can) at the discussion said two striking things. First, he said that he supports the creation of a “federated ecosystem” by industry and gave as a simple example the scenario of logging on to a government website using your TESCO clubcard. Second, he said very clearly “the government will not be handing out a piece of plastic”.

Arcane ceremony versus the pond skater

This idea of “handing out a piece of plastic” was captured neatly by Robin Wilton when he spoke about approaches to identity, describing two basic models. Either we follow what he called a model with “an arcane ceremony, with a single authoritative source”   as per the now defunct UK national ID scheme. Or, we follow a model that uses “non authoritative sources of data” and requires a wider input of information to determine someone’s identity – which is where the pond skater comes in; their ingenious design lets them float on the surface of water sensing vibrations and ripples with the sensitive hairs on their legs and bodies. It’s a good analogy I think.

Inevitably the sources of “non authoritative” information led to a discussion about social networks and what role these have to play. It’s one of the discussion packages that got a bit squashed but that I hope will be revisited because it’s a hugely important piece of the puzzle, not least because it could help answer one of the other questions briefly discussed; how can we market identity services and who will pay for them?

Cross border interoperability

From a European perspective, it was interesting to learn about project STORK which measures the efficiency of cross border ID schemes. Sadly, having been active in the early stages, the UK is now only “supportive” of the issue and is not part of the delivery project.  With 6 pilots in 14 countries the project appears to be successful. The example cited was that a Spanish citizen can assert their right to work in Belgium on line.

Fraud

Richard Hurley from CIFAS, the UK’s fraud prevention service, gave a fascinating insight into the cost of failing to protect an individual’s identity, the market price of a stolen payment card and how fraudsters work in general. On the latter he said that “pick pockets haven’t changed” but that “the internet has changed the symptoms of fraud”. And whereas identity fraud maybe accounted for around 20% of the cases that CIFAS dealt with five years ago, in the last 12 months it accounted for 49% of all cases.  Further discussion round the table revealed that plastic card fraud itself had gone down, possibly thanks to chip and PIN but everyone agreed that fraud doesn’t go away – it just moves somewhere else.

Déjà vu

The strangely comforting thing about listening to the range of problems associated with identity is that many of the issues discussed are not new. But there’s a frustrating side to this too, which for me came in the form of Identrust. Ten years ago I was the Identrust product manager at another smart card company. I spent ages forming alliances and partnerships with a number of suppliers (from huge PKI vendors to small software companies with drivers for smart card readers supporting PKCS#11) and it went nowhere. Literally. The huge buzz around PKI companies like Baltimore fizzled out overnight, apparently taking the dream of an interoperable ID scheme with it. I was really enthusiastic about Identrust ten years ago because it appeared to have the right technology and legal infrastructure to deliver on its promise (from their website):

“IdenTrust enables organizations to effectively manage the risks associated with identity authentication, work interoperably with countries around the world, minimize investment in creating their own policies and legal frameworks, and deploy a spectrum of products insuring trust,smarter, faster, and more cost effectively”

and more importantly from a joined-up perspective it is

“recognized by global financial institutions, government agencies and corporations around the world”.

Like many seemingly perfect solutions, it must be flawed somehow otherwise it would be enjoying much wider success than it currently is. I can’t help feeling that one of the major problems is related to the implementation of PKI, which has the potential to go horribly wrong if it is not made easy enough to use.

The only way is up

I haven’t covered everything. Inevitably the issue of biometrics was raised, a little bashed, as was the idea of “hard” and “soft” identity, which is a distinction that I struggle with – but I am sure these issues will be raised more fully in future sessions.

If you have more than a passing interest in identity and financial services, I recommend that you catch future sessions. The initiative is supported by Visa and I left the first session with the feeling that there were a lot of people around that table with valuable experience and that they were inclined to make a difference.

Thanks to Robbie G1 for the excellent photo of a pond skater.

The last few months have been really noisy in the NFC world. With a number of announcements being made, you could be forgiven for thinking that NFC had suddenly gone mainstream and that there were numerous handsets on the market.

For my own sanity, I wanted to do a quick review of the phones that are out there and pin down where the Secure Element is and which modes are supported. I’ve included the much discussed but still elusive models from RIM and Apple too.

I’ll update this as more handsets come on the market and please feel free to add comments and I’ll include those in the next version.

It’s worth noting that this table does not include handsets used in Asia where the market is vastly different and many more NFC capable handsets exist.