Card, mobile credential, payment and security
ARMONK, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug. 30, 2002–IBM and USA Technologies (OTC BB: USTT) today announced that they will Web-enable 9,000 washing machines and dryers at U.S. colleges and universities, eliminating much of the hassle associated with laundry day at the dorm.
Called e-Suds, the systems replace traditional coin-operated technology with a new method that allows students to pay with the swipe of an ID card or the push of a few buttons on a cell phone.
American Sales (ASI), Inc will provide the e-Suds-enabled machines to colleges in the U.S.
Far more sophisticated than traditional coin-operated laundromats, the machines will be linked to an intelligent back-end systems hosted by IBM. Using the system, students will be able to visit a Website to find out when a machine will be available. They’ll be able to select various functions, such as the dispensing of soap and fabric softener – choosing from a range of products in storage bins attached to each machine. When the wash is done, they’ll be notified via an email sent to their pagers or PCs.
Laundromat owners will go online to monitor machine performance and conduct proactive maintenance, as well as check filter clogs, water temperature and usage patterns – helping to reduce the need for on-site service calls.
IBM will host the e-Suds transaction data and Web sites and integrate the washing machines and dryers with customers’ back-end systems that handle inventory, payment authorization and reports. USA Technology will provide the technology, which makes transactions of less than a dollar cost effective for vendors.
IBM hosts wireless transactions in the vending and hospitality industries in the United States and Canada. The systems are used to vend snacks, sodas and even business services, such as faxes and copies. For example, Kodak has established cashless vending machines in high-traffic areas, to sell one-time-use cameras and film. With the swipe of a credit or ATM card, a zoo visitor or nervous new dad at the maternity wing can capture important memories - without cash. For the vendor, the machine automatically tracks inventory, transaction and traffic, even machine temperature.
Today’s announcement indicates the substantial promise of mobile transactions. Cashless and credit card transactions at vending machines nearly quadrupled between 1990 and 2000 and research firm Ovum predicts that wireless micropayments - transactions of less than $10 - will total $200 billion worldwide by 2005.
“IBM’s data integration and hosting expertise and USA Technology’s point-of-sales systems and services are positioned to help drive the wireless vending industry forward,” said Dean Douglas, vice president, telecommunications industry, IBM Global Services. “IBM and USA Technology are making vending systems smarter as well as easier for the consumer and more secure from vandalism.”
Vending industry sources say the annual losses attributed to vandalism are about $500 million, not including the cost of repairing and/or replacing machines. According to USA Tech, cashless vending helps to eliminate this problem.
“This is just one more step with IBM to provide a more scalable, cost effective solution for our business as our customer base expands,” said George Jensen, chairman and CEO of USA Technologies. “This relationship helps ensure that our momentum will continue to accelerate and that USA Technologies will continue to be a market leader in wireless transaction processing.”
About IBM
The world leader in wireless professional services and Web hosting,** IBM operates more than 175 data centers worldwide, including 25 e-Business Hosting Centers, specifically designed for Web hosting. IBM hosting customers include some of the largest companies in the world, such as The New York Stock Exchange, Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret and the U.S. Open.
About USA Technologies:
USA Technologies is recognized as a leader in unattended cashless and m-commerce transactions, associated financial/network services and interactive media technology. USA Technologies provides networked credit card and other cashless/mobile commerce systems. USA Technologies is an IBM Business Partner and an inaugural member of the Sprint Enabling Application Service Provider Program for e-commerce. The Company has marketing agreements with the IBM Corporation and Mars Electronics International. It has also established partnerships with a number of global IT, multimedia, and telecommunications companies including ZiLOG, Marconi Online Systems, RadiSys Corporation, DoubleClick Inc., and Xerox Corporation. Visit the USA Technologies home page at www.usatech.com.
* Trademark of International Business Machines Corporation
** e-Suds is a registered trademark of Stitch Networks, a
wholly-owned subsidiary of USA Technologies, Inc.
** USA Technologies is a registered trademark of USA
Technologies, Inc.
CONTACT: IBM
Jan Walbridge, 914/766-4647
[email protected]
ORLANDO, Fla., Aug. 28 /PRNewswire/ – Infrasafe, Inc. has contracted withBREA Property Management to provide iVisitor, a web-based visitor management
system, for the third-tallest building in North America, Chicago’s Aon Center.
The iVisitor system enhances facility security and expedites guest check-in,
allowing tenants to pre-enroll guests, receive real-time notifications of
their arrival, and have visitor access control badges automatically printed.
iVisitor has reduced long visitor lines in the Aon Center’s lobbies by
86%, all while increasing building security. Through a standard web browser,
tenants can easily register anticipated visitors, dynamically updating
expected visitor information at the security station and guest reception
areas. iVisitor interfaces with the Aon Center’s existing access control
system, automatically printing unique barcode badges that control building
access for that visitor. For increased security, system administrators can
input unwanted guests, such as disgruntled ex-employees, into a “barred
individuals” database to alert of potential threats to the facility. In case
of an emergency or building evacuation, iVisitor’s unique architecture allows
for the real-time collection of visitor information from any computer,
anytime, anywhere.
Curtis Hrncirik, Product Manager for Infrasafe states, “This was a major
win that will further fuel our momentum within the multi-tenant market. The
selection to deploy this product at the Aon Center validates its scalability
and overall ease of use.”
Roxanne Osborne, General Manager for BREA Property Management at the Aon
Center states, “We are passionate about delivering the level of customer
service a premier building such as the Aon Center deserves. After a lengthy
and complete competitive analysis, we are excited to apply Infrasafe’s new
technologies to provide a more secure environment, streamline costs, and
increase our overall efficiency.”
To learn more about iVisitor or Infrasafe’s suite of security services,
please visit us at http://www.infrasafe.com .
About Infrasafe
Infrasafe is a global security design and integration firm headquartered
in Orlando, Florida. With over 35 years of high-level security industry
experience, Infrasafe is respected worldwide for developing proactive
solutions to some of the world’s toughest security challenges. Infrasafe
serves clients from both enterprise and government markets. For more
information about Infrasafe, please visit http://www.infrasafe.com .
PURCHASE, N.Y. and CAMBRIDGE, UK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug. 7, 2002– MasterCard International and WorldPay, a world leader in multi-currency secure payment processing, today announced the global launch of a programme to advance e-commerce security and boost consumer and merchant confidence, using MasterCard’s UCAF(TM) authentication infrastructure.
Building on its technical architecture for authenticating payments over the Internet, MasterCard UCAF is used to collect and transport cardholder authentication data to an issuer involved in an online transaction. UCAF supports both MasterCard and Maestro(R) credit and debit transactions.
The implementation of MasterCard UCAF will enable WorldPay’s 17,000-plus multi-currency merchants in 115 countries to accept cardholder authentication information from MasterCard issuers following successful verification of the cardholder’s identity by password, PIN, or other issuer approved authentication techniques. This cardholder authentication information is equivalent to a signed sales receipt in the physical world and will help reduce incidences of online fraud, while driving both consumer and merchant confidence for orders placed and accepted over the Internet.
Importantly, WorldPay and its merchants will benefit from MasterCard rule changes that shift liability for fraudulent transactions not authorized by the cardholder away from the online merchant and its acquirer when UCAF has been utilized. Historically, if an online merchant shipped goods for a transaction that turned out to be fraudulent due to the cardholder claiming he or she did not authorize the transaction, the merchant ultimately bore the costs.
As WorldPay’s European-based merchants are enabled, they will benefit from this liability shift immediately for all intra-European MasterCard transactions. Subsequently, all of WorldPay’s merchants are positioned to benefit from a MasterCard global liability shift, planned for November 2002 for fully authenticated transactions.
“MasterCard has spent the necessary time building and refining the technical aspects of our guaranteed payments model for remote purchases,” said Bruce Rutherford, vice president, Global -Business and Emerging Technologies, MasterCard International. “With the vast online merchant base that WorldPay brings to the table, MasterCard has accelerated the adoption of UCAF in the marketplace, helping WorldPay’s merchants and their customers experience a new level of security and convenience when transacting online.”
UCAF supports a broad spectrum of issuer security solutions, providing card issuers with the flexibility to choose how their cardholders best authenticate themselves. Whether an issuer has deployed MasterCard’s PC-based Authentication Program, MasterCard’s Chip Authentication Program, or other authentication solutions, MasterCard’s UCAF infrastructure allows the data to be transported between participating merchants, acquirers and issuers. UCAF standardizes the means for collecting and carrying online cardholder authentication information, thereby reinforcing consumer confidence in the electronic channel.
“This is great news for e-commerce,” said Nick Ogden, WorldPay Chief Executive Officer. “The costs and risks to merchants associated with payments being rejected or fraudulent is very real and MasterCard’s UCAF infrastructure provides a great and practical answer to this problem.”
“As a global launch partner for MasterCard,” Ogden continued, “we are delighted to offer our customers an unrivalled level of user authentication to complement our recent fraud detection initiatives. MasterCard and WorldPay are making online commerce safer for shoppers and merchants alike.”
About MasterCard International
MasterCard International is a leader in global e-business. The association is focused on providing its member financial institutions with customized, meaningful global e-business solutions that connect them to their accountholders. Through its investment in industry innovation, participation in standards development and business alliances, MasterCard is staying in the forefront of technology integration to enable anytime, anywhere payments across multiple channels and various devices. MasterCard’s global e-business solutions include Internet security, smart cards, mobile commerce/wireless, business to business electronic commerce, and numerous emerging technologies.
MasterCard International has a comprehensive portfolio of well-known, widely accepted payment brands including MasterCard(R), Cirrus(R) and Maestro(R). More than 1.7 billion MasterCard, Cirrus and Maestro logos are present on credit, charge and debit cards in circulation today. A corporation with more than 15,000 member financial institutions, MasterCard serves consumers and businesses, both large and small, in 210 countries and territories. MasterCard is a leader in quality and innovation, offering a wide range of payment solutions in the virtual and traditional worlds.
MasterCard’s award-winning Priceless(R) advertising campaign is now seen in 90 countries and in 45 languages, giving the MasterCard brand a truly global reach and scope. With more than 24 million acceptance locations, no payment card is more widely accepted globally than MasterCard. For the year ended December 31, 2001 gross dollar volume exceeded US$986 billion. MasterCard can be reached through its World Wide Web site at http://www.mastercard.com.
About WorldPay
WorldPay (www.worldpay.com) was founded in 1993 and throughout its history has consistently developed innovative and secure Internet-based products and services. Today, as the globally acknowledged and trusted leader in secure, multilingual and multi-currency Internet payment solutions, WorldPay enables over 17,000 customers in 115 countries to sell to shoppers around the globe – in the language and currency of their choice.
At WorldPay’s virtual mall, www.shopatworldpay.com, thousands of retailers from around the globe are open for business, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and searchable by category, name or location. WorldDirect, WorldPay’s multi-currency payment system is integrated to all the leading eCommerce storebuilding applications, including its own Click and Build. Other WorldPay services include repeat billing solution, FuturePay.
Through its unique Guarantee, WorldPay makes international online transactions easy, safe and reliable by offering online businesses protection against card fraud, and shoppers’ peace of mind that they are buying with confidence from WorldPay Guaranteed online stores. Based in Cambridge, UK, WorldPay’s Asia Pacific regional centre is in Singapore and its Americas centre is Sterling, Virginia, USA. It also has operations in Germany and South Africa.
CONTACT: MasterCard International,
Lisa DiNicola, 914/249-5389 ,
[email protected] ,
or
Brodeur Worldwide for MasterCard,
Karen King, 203/399-3303,
[email protected],
or
WorldPay,
Elizabeth Amore, 703/547-6216,
[email protected],
or
Crawford Public Relations for WorldPay,
Jim Crawford, 703/753-4480,
[email protected]
Welcome Back!
As this issue is being sent, most of you are in the throws of registration, orientation and for some the beginning of the fall semester. We hope the summer has been productive for you.
In this issue, there is an article that I believe may be the most important we have run in CR80News to date. In Understanding Financial Controls: Minimizing the risk for employee theft in a card office, we examine practical steps that you can take to reduce the likelihood of theft from your card program or other business unit. Embezzlement from college auxiliaries is not nearly as rare an occurrence as one might think. I was personally involved with one institution from which a card program employee stole more than $200,000 in card account deposits before being uncovered, convicted, and jailed for embezzlement.
Remembering how that crime went undetected for more than one year, I decided to spend some time examining the financial controls used in other card offices. I was shocked by the lack of controls in place at some institutions. I would be willing to bet that embezzlement is occurring from more than a few of our programs right now. The steps described in this article will help you to both prevent embezzlement in the future and detect it if it is already underway.
Be sure to read this important article and share it with the managers that report to you. Make one of your goals for the closing quarter of the year the strengthening and codifying of your financial control procedures. It is simply too important to overlook.
Have a great–and theft-free–start to the new school year.
Chris Corum
Editor
[email protected]
The University of Minnesota’s U Card Office knows how to produce ID cards. They manage production and card services for more than 80,000 students, faculty, and staff at the main campus in Minneapolis and at the University’s three affiliate campuses. It was this ID card experience that got them involved with the Heart Failure Society of America and an innovative new magnetic stripe card reader that has implications for card offices across the country.
The University of Minnesota’s Continuing Medical Education Department awards continuing education units (CEUs) to attendees of Heart Failure Society’s annual conference. A part of this role includes significant participation at the group’s annual conference. Several years ago, the U Card staff began producing conference badges for the annual meeting as a tool to facilitate registration and enable participant tracking for the award of CEUs.
The conference is attended by cardiologists, pharmacologists, nurses, and other medical practitioners involved in heart-related care. As members attend an educational session or course, they are registered so that they receive proper credit for their participation. The challenge has always been how to quickly, accurately, and cost-effectively register the more than 2500 participants choosing between the numerous concurrent sessions.
For the past three years, the U Card office has provided laptop computers equipped with magnetic stripe readers to be transported between sessions to collect data. According to Heather Powell, Marketing Communications Manager for the U Card Office, “we utilize temps to help run the conference and the laptops always necessitated lots of training and technical support.” In addition, the per-station costs were high and the setup was cumbersome and awkward.
At the 2002 annual meeting to be held in Boca Raton, Florida next month, a new solution will be unveiled. The U Card office will utilize handheld Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) with on-board magnetic stripe readers in place of the bulky computers used in the past. The card is swiped through the reader on the PDA and the data is held in the PDA’s on-board memory.
Following the session or series of sessions, the data is transferred from the PDA to a computer via a USB cable. Says Ms. Powell, “the data is then merged into a Microsoft Access version of the original registration database and we can generate CEU certificates and mailing labels immediately after the conference.”
The software and card readers are provided Delaware-based TokenWorks Inc.™. The company’s magnetic stripe reader, called CardTool, slides into the expansion slot on any Handspring Visor PDA. The Handspring Visor utilizes the industry standard PalmOS. Using the basic CardScribe software that is provided with the CardTool reader, data from a magnetic stripe is captured and date/time stamped.
In addition to using the PDAs for continuing education tracking at the sessions, vendors in the exhibit hall can utilize the devices to track visitors to their booth. Visitors present their card to the vendor for swiping and the vendors, at the end of the show, downloads the collected data to a PC. The U Card staff will then query the file against the registration database and provide a file with visitor contact information to the vendor.
According to Ms. Powell, “for this application, we didn’t have to do any development work at all. It came ready to go.” For future on-campus uses, however, Ms. Powell intends to call upon the PalmOS development expertise in the University’s IT department. “We plan to replace the laptop setup that we use for off-line eligibility checking at campus events with the PDA. This may require some custom development but our IT staff is well equipped to take care of it in-house.”
When asked about her experience with the new solution, Ms. Powell sums it up, “You plug it in and it works. I just can’t get over it. I took the reader out of the box, stuck it into the PDA, and I was swiping cards.”
Heather Powell, Marketing Communications Manager for the University of Minnesota U Card Office, can be reached via email at [email protected]. Details on the TokenWorks™ card reader and software can be found at www.tokenworks.com.
Like it or not, people steal. They steal from everywhere. When they steal from a home its called burglary, from a bank its called robbery, and from an employer its called embezzlement. And it happens on college and university campuses far more often than many imagine. If you doubt this, conduct a quick Internet search and you’ll find numerous references to embezzlement by campus personnel. If we are not aware of it and take steps to prevent it than we, in effect, create an environment that breeds embezzlement.
Factors that encourage embezzlement include the accepting and dispensing of cash, a high volume of transactions, atypical transactions (e.g. those not taken via a cash register with a receipt printer), and poor internal controls.
According the University of California’s Guide to Understanding Internal Controls (UC Guide), an internal control is “a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of objectives in the following categories: Effectiveness and efficiency of operations, reliability of financial reporting, and compliance with applicable laws and regulations.” From a financial standpoint, internal controls help ensure that books balance, assets are protected, and the likelihood for theft/fraud is reduced.
Key to this definition is the concept of ‘reasonable assurance.’ Internal and financial controls are balancing acts designed to weigh risks against the controls required to limit these risks. It is possible to completely eliminate a risk but typically the results would be unacceptable. For example, the risk that an employee could steal from petty cash could be eliminated by eliminating the petty cash drawer altogether. This control, however, is unacceptable in that petty cash serves a valuable function in day-to-day business operations. A more reasonable control would be to require written receipts or confirmations for all petty cash transactions, limit access to the drawer to a single employee, establish periodic drawer counts by a person other than the drawer’s custodian, etc.. This more acceptable process would provide the sought after ‘reasonable assurance.’
The UC Guide further describes this balance by examining excessive risks and excessive controls:
Excessive Risks Examples
Loss of Assets, Donor or Grants
Poor Business Decisions
Noncompliance
Increased Regulations
Public Scandals
Excessive Controls Examples
Increased Bureaucracy
Reduced Productivity
Increased Complexity
Increased Cycle Time
Increase of No-Value Activities
Just like in the crime dramas, for an employee to steal from your operation there must be motive and opportunity. The motive or motivation is situational pressure felt by an individual for additional money or things that money can bring. One could argue that some degree of motivation to steal exists in nearly every employee. All have bills to pay. But when motivation increases due to family problems, illness, or other circumstance is when most embezzlement begins. Opportunity is really just access to an environment in which the theft can be committed. As administrators, we cannot control an employee’s motives but we can impact their opportunity via effective internal controls.
Certain types of activities and transactions conducted in our campus business units should be watched as high risk situations for fraud. These include:
Types of internal controls
Controls can be viewed in two categories, preventive controls that attempt to deter theft before it can occur and detective controls that attempt to identify a theft after it has occurred. Both are key to a successful enterprise.
According to the UC Guide:
“Preventive controls attempt to deter or prevent undesirable events from occurring. They are proactive controls that help to prevent a loss. Examples of preventive controls are separation of duties, proper authorization, adequate documentation, and physical control over assets.”
“Detective controls, on the other hand, attempt to detect undesirable acts. They provide evidence that a loss has occurred but do not prevent a loss from occurring. Examples of detective controls are reviews, analyses, variance analyses, reconciliations, physical inventories, and audits.”
It is very likely that your institution has established a written policy for internal controls. Make sure that every one of your managers has a copy and understands it.
The biggest key to combating embezzlement is to learn to be observant. Use common sense as you view your operations and look at situations as if you were considering theft. Where are the weak points in your organization. Remember, one of the most common indicators of embezzlement is often right before your eyes. Know your employees and take an active interest in their lives. If you notice a drastic change in life-style that comes from an increase in discretionary spending, pay particular attention. This could be a sign of good fortuneon the employee’s part or it could be a sign of a problem in your financial controls.
A checklist of financial controls
The list below is provided simply as an overview of specific controls that are particularly relevant to reducing the opportunity for theft in a campus card office. The list is by no means exhaustive, but is presented as a means to encourage discussion and thought about this important, and too often overlooked, topic. (Note: The correct answer to each of these questions is ‘YES’).
(Sources: Small Business Administration’s Internal Financial Controls for a Small Business, American Institute of Banking’s Essential Financial Considerations for Not-for-Profit Organizations)
According to the International Card Manufacturing Association’s Global Card Survey, nearly 9 billion plastic cards were produced in 2000. There is an entire industry devoted to the science of plastics–from creating the ingredients and recipes to producing usable components. While a thorough understanding of the science is unnecessary for most of us, it is important to understand the basics so that we can make good decisions when purchasing plastic cards and can spot problems if failures arise.
How are cards produced?
The majority of cards are produced by layering thin plastic sheets, one on top of the next. Between 3 and 7 layers are typically adhered using a combination of heat and adhesive to form a final sheet. Then the sheet is cut into finished cards at the manufacturing facility. In this production technique, it is not uncommon to find bad sheets in which two of the layers did not adhere correctly. In such a case, the cards from this sheet will tend to split and peel. If you notice cards splitting into layers, talk to your card provider and have the remainder of your card stock checked or replaced. Often it will only impact a single sheet of cards but at times it could impact an entire lot.
Though not as common–especially among cards used as campus ID cards– some cards are produced via a technique known as injection molding. In this case, the plastic is forced into a mold to form the card. This is the same process used to make many of the items that are produced from plastic, everything from toy soldiers to automobile parts.
How is the plastic made?
The base material used to manufacture the majority of ID cards is polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. PVC is not new–in fact, the material was first created in a laboratory in the 1800s. Commercial production began in the US in the 1920s and, since then, PVC has grown to be the world’s second most widely used type of plastic found in everything from children’s toys to construction equipment–and ID cards.
PVC is created using salt and oil. For the chemists among us, electric current when run through salt water decomposes the salt to form chlorine and other by-products. Oil or gas can be refined to produce ethylene, which when combined with chlorine can ultimately produce polyvinyl chloride. PVC contains 57% chlorine by weight and is a white powder in its initial state.
In a pure state, PVC is rigid and holds inks or dyes well but it has low elasticity and tends to break down. For these reasons, the PVC is often mixed with other substances to form the usable plastic we carry in ourwallets and purses.
In some cases, PVC is mixed with other ingredients to make it more elastic and resilient or with other polyesthers to make it more printable, uniform, and durable. A report produced for the International Card Manufacturers Association states that most card mixtures incorporate between 10 and 15 unique ingredients.
Other card materials
In recent years, the environmental negatives involved with the decomposition of PVC led many to seek alternatives. One of these alternatives that has been widely utilized in the card manufacturing arena is polyethylene terephthalate, or PET. PET is a plastic that possesses many of the same characteristics as PVC, however, it does not emit the toxin hydrogen chloride when incinerated.
Another plastic used in card production is acrylonitrile-butadiene styrene, or ABS. ABS can be combined with a PVC base in a layered production process or it can be used as the base polymer in injection molded cards. Due largely to the problems encountered laminating and printing on ABS cards using dye sublimation card printers, it has not been widely used in instant issuance environments such as college and university campuses. More often, ABS cards are used in mass manufactured cards (e.g. transit cards) that are not personalized at issuance.
What we need to know
The choice of card materials can seem daunting but there are a couple of rules to keep in mind to make it easier.
Determine which characteristics are most important to you–the card’s life expectancy, its durability, or its cost? Have you had excessive levels of card failure in the past? Or has this not seemed a problem? Some failure is expected but more than 1 or 2% should raise warning flags.
Discuss the type of plastic in depth with your system provider or card supplier. Find out the types of plastic they recommend, then investigate the manufacturers projected life span for the card. Make sure the answers are suitable to your campus needs. Ask the plastic provider for campus references and talk to that person about their experience with the stock. Remember, some breakdown should be expected, due to differing levels of card use and abuse.
Keep the lessons learned in the review above in mind:
Understanding the basics of card manufacturing will enable you to make good decisions when you order that next round of card stock for your program.
Stonehill College, a competitive Catholic institution located just south of Boston, serves 2,100 undergraduate students. More than 85% of these students reside in campus housing and nearly all participate in the campus meal plan. This makes food service a “big business” on the campus. In 1995 administrators made the decision to make the dining card a true campus-wide tool. They saw that using the card to provide access to places and events across the campus could help raise student awareness of all the available services on campus.
In 1992, the college opened a new dining commons, designed as a declining balance site with multiple dining options. Greg Wolfe, Business Manager and Director of Purchasing at Stonehill, began investigating one card systems as a means to facilitate the changing dining environment. In 1995 the campus installed CBORD’s OmniACCESS System with a single meal plan option. Today, Stonehill offers multiple plans with varying bonuses. The CBORD system allows the college and its food service provider to track the level of meal plan spending and help students change plans if they are over or under their semester’s allocation of meal plan dollars.
As the benefits provided by the card to the food service area became apparent, other campus locations expressed interest in utilizing the card’s payment functionality. A second account was established on thesystem–using the same card as the access and payment tool–for use in these non-dining locations. Called the HillCard, this second account enables payment at facilities including the mail room, bookstore, library, and student center. It is also used for on-line payments at photocopiers and, since 1998, in vending machines. According to Mr. Wolfe, deposits to the Cash Card Account nearly tripled when the vending machines were enabled with card readers.
Mr. Wolfe adds, “We also use the account for central billing of miscellaneous charges like a student handbook for a chemistry class that is printed in the document center. The professors get class lists and each student signs the list when they get their lab workbook– then the charge is entered directly into the system by the card office.”
The College uses a DataCard badging system to produce the ID cards. The contracted food service provider, Sodexho, is responsible for card issuance. A DataCard badging system is used to produce the cards with data shared between the CBORD and DataCard components.
Wolfe elaborates, “Small schools have to keep this in perspective. We shouldn’t go into the card to make money - it’s a customer service thing, enabling us to streamline our internal operations and delivery of services.” He relays the following example: prior to the card system, use of bookstore scholarship money was recorded manually. The bookstore was responsible for ensuring the student was spending within their allotted budget using labor intensive, paper-based logs. Today the value is downloaded right into the bookstore account and can be accessed by ID card-based transactions.
Planned uses for the card in the future include pay-for-print functionality as well as expansion into the sports complex for use in both privilege control and payment arenas.
Stonehill College is a living proof that small to medium sized institutions can truly benefit from a well designed card system–both in the traditional food service arena and beyond.
