About
Smart cards :
A smart card is like a mini-PC in your wallet, and it can do anything
a computer can be programmed to do. The possibilities for smart
cards are virtually unlimited. For our business, Aurama is focused
on how a payment card can be enhanced with new functionality, like
e-tickets, reward points, personal preferences, and secure ID.
Our
services :
We at Aurama provide hardware and software solutions on Smartcards
with an idea of serving clients who are interested in Smartcards
for authentication, valuable data storage and security.
We provide Smart Card solutions for the following applications :
Employee
Management with Access Control
and
Attendance Monitoring
Why
should companies and financial institutions launch a smart card
program?
Smart cards provide users with an important new platform from which
to deliver more secure, better differentiated products and services
across a growing array of new delivery channels. By allowing financial
institutions to better meet the unique needs of their customers,
smart cards will lead to enhanced profitability for the industry
and those members who move to chip.
What can a smart card do that a regular
magnetic stripe card cannot?
Smart cards can store thousands of times more information than traditional,
magnetic stripe cards. This enables smart cards to perform multiple
functions and to make use of high security mechanisms such as advanced
encryption and biometrics.
What is a multiple application card?
Many smart cards have the capability of carrying multiple programs
or applications, such as payment, loyalty, secure ID, and personal
information. In this way, multi-application smart cards can help
consumers reduce the number of cards in their wallets by combining
several existing cards into just a few.
How will smart cards make consumer's lives
easier?
The smart card will be able to do the work of several single-purpose
cards, allowing the consumer to use one card for their payments,
online ID, loyalty points, and personal organizer, for example.
In addition, smart cards will allow consumers to make payments via
three of the most powerful and pervasive devices deployed today:
the telephone, the television and the PC. By working with these
devices, smart cards will make it easier and more convenient for
consumers to make payments anytime, anywhere.
How has the response from consumers been?
Almost universally, there was interest in having one single card
that could do many things. Consumers told us that their smart card
should be personal, portable, rewarding and secure, and we're focused
on delivering exactly that with our customers around the world.
Consumers also told us the smart card should be, 'as smart as I
want it to be.' To us, that says that consumers are looking to gain
more control over the details of their daily lives, and they see
the smart card as one possible solution provided they have some
control over it.
Aren't consumers concerned about the security
of the card?
Security and privacy of personal information are key concerns for
consumers today. To address these concerns, Aurama believes that
chip technology offers important, new benefits for safeguarding
the security and privacy of cardholder information. Accordingly,
Aurama smart cards use advanced chip security features, such as
cryptography and firewalls, to keep such information protected.
Security and fraud are also key issues
with banks. How is the smart card safer or more secure than the
typical magnetic stripe card?
To combat fraud, smart cards typically use a sophisticated system
of encryption locks and keys to authenticate the card, transactions,
and the issuer. In this way, chips make it much more certain that
any given card is genuine. They also provide far greater resistance
against today's fastest growing fraud problem: skimming, where criminals
duplicate information from the magnetic stripe of a credit or debit
card, and begin using such cards for their own benefit.
Enhanced means of defense against fraud are expected to utilize
biometrics, an emerging cardholder verification method that uses
unique physical characteristics to identify individuals. Aurama
has been carefully studying the use of biometric technologies. It
is estimated that the chance of two people, including twins, having
the same fingerprint is less than one in a billion.
Why do you feel this is the time to launch
a smart card in our country?
Here in our country, our key customers are turning to chip technology
as a way of better differentiating their card programs and providing
value-added services to their cardholders. With chip technology,
card issuers can add a lot of new functionality and enhanced services
to a traditional payment card. We believe that consumers will value
these new services.
So, are we talking about some sort of revolution
for the payments industry?
In a way, yes. Over time, the move to chip technology will do to
magnetic stripe bankcards what PCs did to typewriters -- make them
obsolete, due to their limited flexibility and capacity.
