Card, mobile credential, payment and security
Near field communication is still, technically, in its infancy, but it’s gaining a good head of steam as illustrated by this year’s edition of CardTech / SecurTech event. The show is being held May 15-17 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Bill Rutledge, CTST program director, projects a 15% increase in attendance over 2006 figures for the SourceMedia Conferences and Exhibitions event.
Why go? “There’s a lot going on in security and on the payment side,” said Mr. Rutledge. “For people in the payments industry, there’s a lot to be aware of. On the security side, the big effort now is on protecting data and managing identity.”
Focusing on these issues and more will be 15 workshops as well as the CardTech Americas Executive Summit that will feature an hour-long Q and A with key officials from Gemalto, Giesecke and Devrient, Oberthur, Sagem Orga, added Mr. Rutledge. “Attendees will be able to ask whatever they want.” In addition, a well-known security expert, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who is credited with transforming the FBI from a national law enforcement agency to a global security institution, will be a keynote speaker.
A few years ago the show, now in its 17th year, was dominated by security, particularly after 9/11 and the subsequent issuance of HSPD-12 and FIPS 201 standards. Then, contactless made its big splash but stepped aside while everyone rushed to get on the ID security bandwagon.
Then along came near field communication, a co-developed technology of NXP and Sony, to reawaken interest in contactless applications. It has caused an “increasing focus on contactless,” said Mr. Rutledge.
Cardtech
This year, the CardTech portion of CTST will be “focusing on NFC and other mobile payment technologies,” he added. A full day will be devoted to NFC. That will include a look at some of the trials currently underway, including the Dallas, Texas consumer trial initiated by MasterCard and a Bank of America “internal test” with its employees, where they were issued NFC-enabled phones, said Mr. Rutledge.
“A lot of vendors are talking about this new technology,” he added. These vendors include not just credit card issuers or chip makers, but wireless carriers as well. And there’s more to mobile payment projects than just NFC. There’s one “payment scheme that will allow you to call up, enter a number and transfer money via a phone line,” said Mr. Rutledge. “A lot of smaller companies are experimenting with that.”
Along with NFC market projections from Ginger Schmeltzer, manager of Edgar Dunn and Co. and market opportunities in telecom-based payments by NXP’s Manuel Albers, the NFC/Mobile Payment Technologies session will also include a look at Visa’s pilot mobile payments programs and an “Update on NFC Reference Design” by Inside Contactless and a look at SIM-based NFC services from Gemalto.
There are also what Mr. Rutledge calls “merchant driven alternative payment systems, like Paypal that allows merchants to go beyond major credit card vendors to offer payment systems that don’t have anything to do with MasterCard or American Express. That’s started to take off in a lot of areas. Whether its online or over the phone, alternatives to different payment systems will be some key topics,” he said.
May Kay Bowman, senior manager, global payments for Amazon.com will discuss “The Retailer Rebellion,” while a Verizon representative will talk about the “Move to Mobile.” Under the heading, Battle of the Systems,” a panel discussion will include representatives from First Data Commercial Services, Gratis Card, Tempo and Yodlee.
With these alternative payment systems also comes different card form factors, he added.
A section titled “Battle of the Form Factors” will include panelists from Cardinal Venture Capital, iCache, and Aliaswire.
The CardTech portion will also feature an update on EMV migration, particularly in Canada. Catherine Johnston, president and CEO for ACT Canada, will head a panel discussion featuring representatives from the Bank of Montreal, Interac (the country’s national automated banking machine and POS debit sale network), MasterCard Worldwide and the Visa Canada Association.
There will also be an EMV case study, “Deploying a Full Grade EMV Card and Acceptance Network,” a look at “Contactless EMV: Finding its Place in the U.S. Market,” and “The Role of EMV in Fraud Mitigation.”
Another daylong session will cover contactless payment strategies and will look at those of Visa and MasterCard, Wells Fargo’s contactless card rollout, American Express’ contactless card, and “Consumer Perceptions versus Realities.”
SecurTech
The other half of CTST, security, won’t be outdone. “We’ve always talked about security at the card level. We have a new workshop called ‘Advanced ID Management and Cybersecurity,’ where we’ll be talking about network security, management of digital IDs, public key encryption,” said Mr. Rutledge. This Smart Card Alliance-produced session will include representatives from Gemalto, Microsoft, Actividentity, Verisign, Lockheed Martin, GSA, Intercede, the Department of Defense and Corestreet.
Some of the topics include: ID management on desktops and servers, managing the identity on the credential, shared services for ID management, the DoD’s Common Access Card and mobile credential management for first responders.
“We’ll be talking about the system holistically, taking it to a new level in terms of network ID, managing security life cycles, etc.,” said Mr. Rutledge. “This will be a very intense workshop.”
There will also be half-day sessions, back-to-back, covering biometrics security and the Real ID Act. Sponsored by the International Biometric Group, the biometrics portion will include what the federal government is doing with biometrics, consumer acceptance of biometric technology, and an update on biometric testing and technology. The Real ID portion will cover what some of the states are currently doing to comply with the act, a panel discussion on “obstacles and opportunities” to Real ID Act implementation, and some of the “benefits and challenges” to the Real ID Act. A panel discussion will feature representatives from the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, California’s DMV, Department of Homeland Security and Digimarc.
Two other daylong sessions in the SecurTech track will cover Healthcare Card Technologies and Strategies and Data and Physical Security Convergence.
The former will feature speakers from Accenture, IBM Research, Healthmeans, G&D, Siemens and Gemalto and will include a look at healthcare cards market projections, open technology standards, best practices in healthcare card implementation, and case studies on the Taiwan Healthcare card, the Texas Medicaid Access Card and the French healthcare card.
The data/physical security convergence session will include speakers from the City of Vancouver, Symantec, Intel, the Boeing Company, Identity Alliance and Unisys and will feature global security management, interoperability standards for security convergence, case studies in convergence engineering, ID token technologies for converged security, and more.
A daylong session on Authentication and Secure Payment Technology for executives will include speakers from Crone Consulting, Javelin Strategy and Research, Volubis, mSystems, Magtek, eFunds Xiring, and IBM Canada.
For more information about this year’s conference, go to: www.sourcemediaconferences.com/CTST07/.
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