Ray Van Eng (10/06/97)
After a series of limited market pilots, Mondex International is poised to roll out major worldwide consumer services which will see more than half a million Mondex stored value cards being used before the end of 1997. By the end of 1998, the company expects to have 5 million reloadable Mondex cards out in the market.
This specially designed chip dubbed the Mondex H8/3109 roll-out chip is manufactured by Hitachi. The new Mondex card based on this chip is versatile enough to facilitate transactions in physical merchant locations and over the Internet. The H8/3109 chip consists of 8Kbytes of EEPROM and 14Kbytes of ROM and an on-board crypto co-processor needed for high speed encryption calculations necessary to ensure a fast response time and high data security over a public network. To expand the card's usefulness for international travelers, the Mondex technology is capable of handling up to five foreign currencies in different "electronic pockets" on the card at any one time. Consumers can download money from their accounts via the public telephone network, the Internet, ATMs and point-of-sale (POS) terminals. In the United Kingdom where the Mondex technology is derived, Mondex and Cellnet (England's mobile phone network) will let digital mobile phone users to transfer money into their Mondex cards by way of the GSM network. In the United States, the AT&T Universal Card Services is implementing the Mondex technology to allow shopping over the Internet using electronic cash. AT&T has an agreement with GMO (Global Music Outlet) to market a digital jukebox system that lets consumers purchase music recordings online and download the digital audio for 99 cents a piece. On October 6, 1997, the long awaited Mondex and Visa Cash pilot will take place in Manhattan's Upper West Side. Interoperability test between the two e-cash card schemes using a single card reader is the main focus of the trial. More than 600 merchants including the region's fast food restaurants and neighborhood stores will be given a free countertop smart card reader to test market acceptance of smart card technology. About 50,000 stored value cards will be issued to customers of Chase Manhattan (25,000 Mondex cards) and Citibank (25,000 Visa Cash cards). In Canada where Mondex is enjoying an overwhelming support
from practically all major financial institutions, Guelph & Wellington
Credit Union Limited recently became the first Credit Union in the world
to offer the Mondex electronic cash cards which are currently being used
in Guelph, Ontario. Related stories: CANARIE to Secure Net Payment with Mondex Card |
As
the scope of smart card usage broadens, security becomes a major concern.
To counter this potential hazard, Mondex is relying on a new generation
of microchips the compant has been testing for the last two years.