By Andy Williams, Contributing Editor

A couple of years ago Wells Fargo's Peter Ho was in Hong Kong when he picked up an Octopus card, a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card used for electronic payment. "I said 'wow, wouldn't that be cool if we could do something like that in the U.S.?' " Zip ahead to 2006 and Mr. Ho's dream is about to become a reality. Wells Fargo is soon to become the first bank in the western United States to enter the contactless card arena.