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E-cash alternatives

Speaker Jurgen Kempe, executive vice-president, Orga Systems, Germany, addressed the conference on the 'Options in e-cash'.

Orga Systems Germany has a track record of success in the 'smart card' technology worldwide.

T O D A Y

• Jeff Mason's keynote • Q&A: Jeff Mason • E-cash alternatives • Selling on the Net • Internet telephony • Knowledge strategy • Q&A: Rick Inatome • Looking forward

Kempe pointed to the tremendous potential for 'smart cards' as a major e-cash option with his estimate that there would be between 2-3.5 billion smart cards by 2000 worldwide.

While telecommunication accounts for the biggest share of the smart cards, health care, medical insurance and mobile communication would see a large demand for this alternative, opined Jurgen Kempe.

E-cash, he said, would cover credit-charge cards, e-paise and e-commerce. There would be 20 billion transactions of e-commerce by 2000 AD, he said, adding that the infrastructure is about 1 terminal/100 cards in a country such as the USA.

Home banking via the Internet and multimedia are interesting areas of growth in the future and as the security and authentication aspects are becoming clearer, e-cash will be a reality in India within the next three-and-a-half years, Jurgen Kempe predicted.

The key success factors for e-cash or smart cards would be the low level of technical entry, commitment to terminal infrastructure and geographic population spread, he said.

Today, in Germany, three of four doctors accept medical/health insurance cards and this trend is likely to spread in the future, he felt.

As a vision, India must look not to one single scheme, but establishment of initial low cost infrastructure, which would cater to localised requirement, Kempe recommended.

Saying that smart cards would progressively upgrade in memory size, Kempe was sure that by 1999, 32K memory cards would be standard and 64K memory cards by 2002. He does not, however, recommend the multifunctional card reader, even if it is technically feasible, because it could reduce personalisation.

The security aspects are well ahead of the hackers and smart cards are quite safe, he assured.

Kempe says that Orga plans to have a software development center based in India within the near few months.

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