Industry Update

India - The hot spot for Smart Cards

Asia Pacific accounts for approximately 30% of worldwide smart card sales, making it the second-largest market after Europe.

In Asia, India represents a great deal of potential and a very strong market is developing here after China and Japan.

  • Presently India has got approximately 50 million smart cards users with around 30% usage in Cell phone SIM cards.
  • Indian smart card industry is growing @ 45% per annum.
  • The smart card business potential of India is expected to reach US $ 6 billion by the year 2010.
  • Presently, India has got around 3 million mobile phone users and it is expected to reach 8 million users by year 2003.
  • The requirement of smart cards as identity cards, the combined municipal card and the welfare sector is expected to be 600 million by the year 2005.
  • The demand for smart cards in Health care & Transportation sectors is expected to reach 350 million by the year 2005.

International Interest
  • 10 Member consortium consisting of Compaq, ProtonWorld, ACI, Gemplus, Schlumberger, Infineon, Datacard, Alittleworld, CMS, FSS, Mixtorf are planning to launch a multi-application smart card based payment infrastructure project in India.
  • Orga is planning to provide 50 million cards (GSM Phone Cards and Banking Cards ) in the Indian market by the year 2005.
  • Intel is introducing research in chip development designing in India after Japan.
Latest News

International
  • Security solution provider SC2 has launched a new contactless smart card system based on Infineon's microcontroller platform.
  • Hitachi Ltd. has produced the smallest RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip in the world.
India
  • India's first credit card manufacturing Versatile Cards Pvt. Ltd a part of $60 million Versatile Cards Technology Inc. was unveiled recently.
  • Association for security of Information Systems (ASIS) to evolve security norms & standards for Information Technology systems and also to provide certification to the hardware and software security products as well as technical professionals.

Notable Smart Cards projects in India :
  • Employee's Provident Fund to issue smart cards soon for its 2.6 crore subscribers which would be accessed through its 267 offices.
  • Smart Cards for Government employees & Labour in Goa will be issued soon.
  • ICICI Bank plans to launch smart cards with real time online integration for facilitating transactions, payments to utilities and services etc.
  • Gujarat State Smart Card Driving licence - the biggest project of its kind in World.
  • Delhi's traffic police is planning to introduce smart card driving licence.
  • Rajasthan milk card project - the world's first milk collection point based on smart card technology in India run exclusively by women.
  • Indian government & UNICEF have launched the village Watsan information system, which ensures the construction and maintenance of the wells..
  • Metro railway, Kolkota is going to issue smart season tickets instead of magnetic strip cards shortly.
  • Petro cards - BPCL
  • Prepaid cards used in cyber cafes of HPCL and many more
  • Smart Loyalty Programme as in the case of Snowhite Apparels,HomeSaaz etc
  • Smart dealership loyalty programme in the case of Hewlett-Packard India Ltd
  • Smart Employee Management as in the case of LML Ltd, TVS Electronics, TVS Suzuki etc.
  • Another important project is the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) sponsored SMARS (Smart Rupee) project. The project was launched in 1997 at the Indian Institute of Technology; the consortium includes banks such as the State Bank of India, Canara Bank and Citi Bank, terminal manufacturers like VeriFone India Pvt Ltd, systems integrators like, Aplab Limited, Ascom India Pvt Ltd, CMS Computers Ltd, and card manufacturers like Gemplus and Schlumberger.
  • Mumbai Campus Scheme…… the SMARS (smart rupees) project involves the issue of smart cards to students and staff for use in around 150 on-campus merchants and retailers.
  • Smart Health Management as in the case of Wockhardt Hospitals, Bhopal Gas Relief Project etc.
  • Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) has now decided to introduce contactless cards for ticketing across its entire network.etc.