Smart cards in Australia
Intellect's first public smart card project in Australia involves the use of its SmartCash loyalty system, which saw 500 of the company's Microbank point-of-sale terminals installed at retailers on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. The system will gradually be expanded across the country as partner interest and commercial circumstances allow.
With strong government and private sector cooperation, a single smart card could eventually serve as a non-repudiable card for online and offline identification, a traditional credit/debit card, a loyalty program membership card, government benefits card, and more.
By allowing banks to assume the complexity of establishing and maintaining a smart card infrastructure, other companies can focus on building innovative customer loyalty programs instead of worrying about logistical issues.
"Future expansion of the functionality of the chip is going to be based on solid business cases," says Rayner. "The ability to get new applications onto the chip is there, and we have to make sure those business applications make sense to the consumer. That's been the challenge in the past."
Banks aren't alone in their quest to define the platform for Australians' smart card usage; any large company could potentially do the same thing by pushing the cards out to its members.
That's the approach of NRMA, which has been actively working to broaden its product range since its demutualisation. In fact, NRMA is leading the way in the private sphere with plans to issue its more than two million members with smart card-based membership cards that will eventually work on toll roads, public transport, car parks, and other locations.
Although large companies have long accepted the promise of smart cards in conceptual terms, the fact that they're finally formulating plans to put cards into consumers' hands bodes well for the future of the technology. Once customers are empowered with the cards, the future will be open to whomever can develop the most innovative and relevant applications.
It's obvious...isn't it?
Probably 4 or so factors affecting Smartcard deployment in Australia.
1) The cost of outlaying new POS terminals to accept smartcards. There are few initiatives out there. AMEX is a classic example. They deployed their new chip card but where are the readers. ANZ looks the most promising and are in the process of upgrading their ATMS and POS terminals to accept their own branded cards.
2) Magstripe card fraud is relatively low in Australia and banks cover the cost of any fraudulent transactions, so there is no real advantage for customers to transfer over to the new schemes.
3) Apart from Financial, GSM, and some security based applications, there's no real interesting applications for customers.
4) There are no dominating Smart Card standards. Telstra initiative at Adelaide UNI was a disaster. There needs to be an open and free SC standard (without any fine print). There are more smartcard forums and other group bodies, than actual standards.
5) Serious investment no were to be found for smart schemes. Whether this is a failure to deliver affect businesses cases, or no interest is difficult to tell.
Rob