Jelte Van Der Hoek was asked…

Q) What is the main technological advance in smart card technology in recent times?
A) The lower price and higher availability (from multiple sources) of cryptographically capable smart card processors has allowed more complex security protocols to be conducted on smart cards. Although this could always be done with a lot of effort and engineering skill, recent processor launches have allowed more companies to get into the card application programming business. We’re expecting to see a lot of new innovative smart card based products to come out from a variety of players because of this.

Q) What was the impediment to moving to multi-application smart cards in the past?
A) Not so long ago, this was certainly due to lack of vision for a good business case. Most organizations still viewed the smart card as a means to store more data on a card than a magnetic stripe can hold. Very few companies actually saw the advantages of the complex transaction processing that could occur ‘in-the-field’. The approach taken mostly was to adapt the smart card to the existing host systems, rather than the other way around. Multi-application smart cards cannot take off without a management infrastructure that is designed to handle the distributed communications, business-to-business interactions and end-to-end cryptographic transactions of tomorrow’s world.

Q) Where do you see the market moving in the long and short term?
A) In the short term the need for secure Internet payments will drive smart card issuance in the US, Europe and Asia have traditionally used smart cards for their mobile telephony infrastructure and people are familiar with those concepts. In those markets we are likely to see smart cards being deployed for other applications (including payment) in the near future. In the long term smart cards will be replaced by (GSM phone-like) consumer devices that might be connected to the Internet via mobile networks and will give the consumer (and issuer) more control over any kind of real-world and cyberspace transaction. Payment will become integrated with handheld computing.

Q) How secure are smart card transactions?
A) More secure than magnetic stripe transactions, although security is always a matter of risk-management. As transactions become more complex (and possibly involve multiple parties) the need for a ‘next-generation’ risk-management infrastructure will become pressing. Cards etc’s vision is that Arterium will play a big role in this.

Q) What should business be considering when thinking about smart card technology?
A) Business should think about the consumer when thinking about technology. Putting a chip on a bit of plastic solves the security issue but doesn’t improve the consumer proposition. In the future we’ll see other devices or gadgets come out that take smart cards, where the smart card only takes care of the security. In my view, this is what the consumers will be attracted to. The form is less important than the transaction.

Q) What is rewarding about working in this field?
A) The complexity of the field is the most rewarding thing. Our people encounter a complete spectrum of technology; from fault tolerance and server design to cryptography and embedded systems. These offer daily challenges to any engineer.

This interview was supplied by:http://www.cardsetc.com