Telstra, ERG and ANZ will form a joint venture company to develop an open common platform for the processing of smartcard transactions, in a move they think will stimulate the use of smartcards in Australia.
In his keynote address at the smartcard industry forum, Cards 99 in Sydney, last week, Peter Fogarty, CEO of smartcard developer and supplier, ERG, said, "we need continuing cooperation and convergence to move the industry forward."
According to David Boyles, ANZ head of technology for e-commerce and payments, "the joint venture is a means to share the technology, investment risk, development and operating costs."
The as yet unnamed company will establish and run a transaction centre which will handle Telstra's and ERG's smartcard transaction processing. The new company will have its own operating structure and will be formalised in the next few months.
The company will develop a migration path for existing platforms to a common platform based on international standards.
Ted Pretty, group managing director of convergent business at Telstra said the companies "would be actively encouraging additional investors."
Meanwhile Telstra announced that it will be supporting, non-exclusively, the development of the MULTOS smartcard operating system as an open industry standard. Telstra has become a member of the MAOSCO Consortium, an international consortium of companies to drive the development and adoption of MULTOS.
However, Telstra would not say whether MULTOS would be the open standard used by the joint venture company.
