Close to eight million SIM cards could have been rendered useless had the government not extended the registration deadline to August 30 this year.

Information and communication permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo said that only 62 percent of the estimated 20 million subscribers had so far complied with the government directive with the initioal deadline expected to expire on Friday.

And as is oftentimes the case with Kenyans when it comes to procrastination, despite having a whole month to register their SIM cards most of them jammed registration centers to beat the deadline.

But the government came to their rescue with a 31 day extension notice.

Market leader Safaricom registered the highest number of SIM cards at 71 percent of its 12 million customers while Zain was second with 54 percent of its 1.03 million subscribers registered according to Ndemo.

The government is creating the register of SIM card owners with names and personal details to help authorities rein in the growing high-tech crime rate.

Ndemo said it was now criminal for telecommunication operators to register new subscribers without identification documents.

Last year, President Mwai Kibaki directed mobile phone operators to register their customers to boost national security and reduce phone related crimes.

The Canadian Visa vendor Home Trust has selected Gemalto to manage its migration to EMV smart payment cards. Up until now the company has supplied only magnetic strip payment cards. With the support of Gemalto, Home Trust will begin issuing the new cards through pilot programs in Ontario.

The hope of Home Trust is to completely covert to the EMV. The selection of Gemalto comes with microprocessor payment cards as well as data preparation and personalization. In addition Gemalto is providing training on EMV conversion to Home Trust associates.

AMT Coffee has introduced contactless smart card payments throughout its 65 UK stores.

The coffee bar chain unveiled the payment method at Marlyebone station last week, the last branch to adopt the technology.

Customers will be able to pay for goods worth up to £15 by simply holding their card over the provided terminal, eliminating the need to enter a PIN code.

Jon Hassall, chief operating officer at AMT Coffee, claimed contactless payments will be key to future transaction methods.

He said: “Before April this year, none of our branches accepted debit or credit cards but the speed of contactless persuaded us it was a must have for a coffee retailer in busy railway stations.”

The firm was previously reluctant to deploy card payments in its busy airport and railway station stores as it was feared it would take too long to process the transactions.

Source: squirdcard.com

A system of paying for bus fares in advance is expanding across Bristol after a successful trial.

The smart cards will be introduced in August on 30 Wessex Connect bus routes into and around the city.

Bristol City Council said they were also hoping to roll the scheme out to First Bus services across the west of England in March 2011.

Card users will get a 16% discount on fares and will be able to pre-pay for up to £50 worth of tickets.

Councillor Gary Hopkins, the council’s cabinet member for transport, said the trial had been run “on a shoestring” but that a £1.1m award from central government meant the necessary technology could now be introduced.

The scheme has been trialled with Wessex Connect and the University of the West of England (UWE) Ulink buses.

‘Save time’
Mr Hopkins said: “They’re being used by staff at the moment, ensuring any glitches are knocked out of the system.”

The councillor added the cards, which are similar to London’s Oyster Card but are yet to be given a name, would “have a huge affect on fares” and “save huge amounts of time”.

“Having those cards, getting them widely used, will be absolutely a vital factor in improving transport across the city,” he said.

“We’ve got promises from First Bus to actually introduce across the west of England from next March and now obviously we need to make certain that progresses.

“For the moment they’re called smart cards, but we’d like to hear from people what they think would be the right name.”

Ian Pollard, from Wessex Connect, said: “We are proud to be at the forefront of developing better access to bus services in the south-west by embracing new technology to offer improved ticket and pass options for people to get better value.”

He said passengers would be able to top-up value on their card on buses and, in future, at a network of shops.

A spokesman for First said it supported the scheme and was working with the council to implement it.

He said: “We continue to discuss the introduction of smart card enabled ticket machines with all local councils throughout the region and the availability of public funding to facilitate this.”

CreditCall Ltd. is developing a mobile-payment application to enable merchants to accept secure chip-and-PIN transactions on Blackberry and other smart phones, the United Kingdom-based payment processor announced last week.

CardEase Mobile will be available this fall in the UK and is being tested at several UK-based acquiring banks. It also will be available in the fall in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Europe, Russia and Asia, according to CreditCall.

CardEase Mobile, to be accredited by UK acquiring banks this fall, will support chip-and-PIN, magnetic stripe and card-not-present transactions. The application also will support such functions as end-of-day reporting, refunds and void transactions. CardEase declined to comment on which UK banks but noted the company also is seeking accreditation with Moneris Solutions, a Canada-based bank.

The service will include a separate Bluetooth-linked wireless PIN pad that merchants can pair with a smart phone. The PIN pad will enable merchants to conduct both chip-and-PIN and mag-stripe transactions, a spokesperson from CreditCall tells PaymentsSource. The PIN-pad will be available to purchase from various distributors later this year. CreditCall declined to comment on specific distributors.

The application reads the information from the consumer’s PIN entered through the separate PIN pad. The data are then sent encrypted over a wireless network to the merchant’s bank for authorization. Merchants also may send customers transaction receipts via e-mail, text message or printed out from an option printer.

To use CardEase, merchants pay a service rate to their acquirer or processor, a distributor fee, an application fee and a fee for the hardware. CreditCall declined to comment on the exact amount of each fee.

Merchants may purchase the application for a Blackberry phone and eventually other smart phones such as Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Nokia’s Symbian, in 2011, the spokesperson says. Once merchants install the application, they must register with CreditCall to have the application connected to a credit card merchant account to enable live transactions.

Merchants also will must set up a credit card merchant account with a bank certified with CreditCall. Merchants that already have an account to accept credit and debit cards do not need to set up an additional credit card merchant account.

CreditCall’s CardEase Mobile may be the first application designed for chip-and-PIN transactions, but it is not the first payment application developed for mobile merchants. In fact, mobile merchants and even brick-and-mortar retailers in the U.S. have available a wide range of similar applications and hardware.

However, there are not many payment applications like CardEase outside the U.S., Adil Moussa, an analyst for Boston-based Aite Group, tells PaymentsSource. “CreditCall is well-positioned in chip-and-PIN acceptance areas to take advantage of merchants who want mobile payment applications,” he says.

Though smart-phone applications give merchants an easy way to accept payments, some merchants may have to decide if “it is worth it to buy all the separate pieces or easier to use a wireless terminal,” Todd Ablowitz, president of Double Diamond Group, a Centennial, Colo.-based consulting firm, tells PaymentsSource. Some mobile merchants may find wireless terminals meet their needs better than mobile applications.

Once again, the Motor Vehicles Department is dusting up its shelved project for issuing smart cards for vehicle owners in the state.
Within a span of eight years, this is for the third time that the Department is reviving this proposal.
According to the project, the licence and certificate of registration will be converted into a pocketable smart card embedded with a memory card. Photographs of motorists and their thumb impression and details of registration, tax payments, fitness, hypothecation, pollution control certificates and offences will be included in the single card.
Earlier, the move to introduce smart card system was cancelled twice.
In 2002, the project was to introduce a smart optical card incorporating details of license and registration. However, tenders were cancelled following the revision of standards for issuing license and registration certificates in electronic format by the Central Government.
Later, tenders were floated in 2005 for issuing smart optical cards for registration certificates and smart cards for licences.
The tender was awarded to Indian Telephone Industries at the rate of Rs 400 for a smart optical card and Rs 150 for one smart card.
However, the tender was cancelled following a wide spread opposition from various parts against the heavy rates imposed for issuing cards.
Top officials said that the move to introduce smart optical card has been withdrawn and the present proposal is to issue smart cards at a price less than Rs 50.
“The storage capacity of chips embedded in smart cards has increased a lot. As there is enough space for storing all details regarding the vehicle, there is no need for smart optical card,” officials said.
“Presently, it is nearly impossible to know whether a motorist is a habitual offender or not. Such a recorded history of a particular motorist is not available now. The fine imposed varies with the repetition of same offence.
Smart card provides electronic access and data can also be entered whenever required. With just a swipe in a hand held electronic machine, the detailed history of the motorist can be accessed,” officials in the department said.
The company, which wins the contract, will act as a service provider to the MVD and will be entrusted to supply cards and enter the details.
The Department is planning to introduce the card system across the state at one stretch. The proposal is under the consideration of a technical committee comprising IT secretary, Transport secretary and officials of the (National Informatics Centre) NIC.

Network International LLC (NI), the largest acquirer in the UAE and the preferred card solutions provider in the region, recently signed a contract to be a provider of electronic voucher service (e- voucher) for Du, the UAE’s integrated telecom service provider.

About Network International:

Established in 1994, Network International LLC is the largest acquirer and one of the leading payment solutions providers in Region geared to meet the needs of Banks, Financial institutions, and large and individual retailers. It is a Principal Member of Visa International and MasterCard International for the UAE, offering customers the most comprehensive range of payment products and services in the Gulf and MENA region, for both the Issuing and Acquiring segment of the card payment industry. Offerings include credit and debit card processing services, ATM management and monitoring, merchant acquiring plus consumer finance applications. Network International provides consultancy services ranging from planning and designing, to developing of new card and consumer finance products and services.

Network International is the first independent vendor certified by both Visa & MasterCard for card payments in the Middle East. It is UAE’s largest payment acquirer for Credit & Debit Cards and the largest third-party processing vendor which is capable of providing banks, the retail industry and financial institutions with complete EMV certified solutions as they migrate to EMV Smart Card technology.