July 17, 2009

Oberthur unveils new contactless payment device worldwide

Oberthur unveils new contactless payment device worldwide

“FlyBuy” turns mobile into moolah

It’s not that you have to pay with your phone. It’s just that many people want to be able to pay daily charges with their phone, equipped as a contactless payment device. Research has shown that nowadays folks are more likely to leave home without their wallet than without their cell phone or mobile device.

There’s a new device that will actually let you wave and pay with anything with a good clean surface that adhesive will stick to, be it a cell phone, PDA, wristwatch, MP3 player, or bowling trophy, if one should be willing to carry that around.

In late April Oberthur Technologies introduced FlyBuy contactless stickers (see photo), which were simultaneously deployed to three banks internationally. The banks, one of which is a major U.S. card issuer, declined to allow Oberthur to identify them.

The FlyBuy consists of two pieces. One is a “minicard” equipped with contactless payment capability. The other is a holder which secures the card. The holder, which adheres to the phone or other object selected by the card user, contains a ferrite backing that protects the mobile device from interference from the contactless payment technology and the payment device from the mobile technology.

Martin Ferenczi, Oberthur’s managing director for the Americas Region of Oberthur’s Card Systems Division, said the new devices, not yet in banks’ customers hands, have been certified by MasterCard, which cooperated in their development.

Ferenczi noted that competitors to his firm’s new product include one made by Open Loop Inc., and a pre-paid card from First Data. He expects usage of such devices to accelerate as the public increasingly accepts them in place of payment cards relying on traditional magnetic strip technology.

And that’s simply from the viewpoint of convenience and timesaving. “One thing most people don’t realize is that there really is more security with the contactless device,” Ferenczi explained. “Effectively, when you use a contactless card, each usage has a unique identification number.” Mag stripe technology, on the other hand, is static and always has the same transaction identification code, said Ferenczi.

--Steve Cocheo, executive editor, scocheo@sbpub.com

[This article was posted on May 14, 2009 on the website of ABA Banking Journal, www.ababj.com, and is copyright 2009 by the American Bankers Association.]