Sony Corp. has gained a major supplier of its FeliCa ISO 18092 standard contactless cards outside Asia, tapping Illinois-based Versatile Card Technology as its North American manufacturer.

“FeliCa represents a major improvement in the flexibility, speed and security of transactions with respect to the traditional ISO 14443 based card technologies now available in the U.S.,” said Rome Jetté, VCT’s vice president of smart cards. “With over 350 million FeliCa cards and cell phones already deployed in some of the most demanding applications, Sony has clearly proven that FeliCa technology is more than ready for the American market.”

FeliCa contactless cards have been deployed in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Singapore, Japan, Thailand and others. Also, as the new NFC standard gains acceptance, Sony says it has seen FeliCa making major inroads into the mobile phone market where it is being embedded into handsets to conduct financial transactions.