The future of contactless lies in a convergence of payments, access, identity and transit among other applications. That’s INSIDE Contactless’s view, which it intends to highlight at the upcoming CARTES and IDentification show in Paris Nov. 4-6 with its “A Converging Contactless Life,” presentations.
“INSIDE sees a perfect storm brewing where the next wave of contactless payment cards, transit cards, access cards and ID cards will converge within multi-application cards, sticker devices and NFC-enabled mobile phones,” said Charles Walton, INSIDE’s executive vice president of payments. “Combined payment/transit, payment/loyalty, payment/access and transit/access cards offer strong value to users through greater simplicity and convenience, and we believe our versatile, multi-application MicroPass platform is the most practical solution for implementing them.”
The MicroPass product displays at CARTES will feature this payment platform’s role as one of the principal drivers of the next wave of multi-application contactless payment cards, transit cards and access cards, he said.
Visitors to CARTES & IDentification 2008 in Paris can watch the INSIDE MicroPass demonstrations at any time during the exhibition at the INSIDE booth 4 L 125, located in Hall 4 of the Paris-Nord Villepinte-France Exhibition Centre. INSIDE will have technical and product experts available for discussions and demonstrations. Walton will make his presentation, “Catch the Next Wave: Convergence and the Future of Contactless Payments,” Nov. 5, from 12 to 12: 30 p.m. as part of the C13: Convergence conference session.
INSIDE will present four demonstrations about the MicroPass platform and how it can accommodate a broad range of application combinations. One demonstration will highlight a payment/loyalty combination, showing how customers can order coffee drinks based on their preferences, receive loyalty credits and pay for them with the same card.
Another demo combines payment, loyalty and access control on a single card, showing how frequent travelers can book and pay for their tickets, select their seats and gain entry to the airline’s club lounge using a single card. The campus demo shows how students can use a single card to use various campus facilities, such as checking out library books, logging in to the campus network, gaining access to various buildings or paying for lunch at the cafeteria. The payment/transit demo shows how a single card can be used for both local transit system and open-loop payments. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/contactlessnews-4.gif)
