INSIDE Contactless passes 50m milestone

Affirming its position in the contactless payments market, INSIDE Contactless says that shipments of its MicroPass intelligent payment platform for contactless payment cards have surpassed 50m units.

Since it was first launched at CARTES in November of 2005, the MicroPass platform has achieved its unprecedented success by continuing to deliver performance, flexibility, and is now the platform of choice for certified card manufacturers around the world.

“Contactless payment technology has seen steady expansion, and INSIDE is a driver behind this growth by delivering innovation to its key constituencies,” says Bob Egan, chief analyst for TowerGroup. “We expect the market to continue its evolution by supporting emerging convergence among contactless payment, transit fare collection, retail loyalty, access control and ID, and other emerging applications.”

Approved by Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Network - including all required functional, analogue, performance, and security requirements compliance - the MicroPass platform is the most broadly available core technology for contactless payments, powering more than 50m bank cards from over 30 card issuers worldwide.

Its low power and high performance, combined with the industry's fastest transaction time and outstanding read distance, enables MicroPass to deliver a superior cardholder experience for a broad range of uses. The new MicroPass 4000 suite builds on this success to deliver high-volume, multi-payment, and multi-application capabilities for the next generation of contactless payment applications.

“We anticipate continued strong growth in the North American contactless payments market in 2008 with more than 25 active issuance programs and value propositions to consumers, issuers, and merchants demonstrated,” comments Charles Walton, executive VP, payments, INSIDE Contactless.

“Looking forward, we anticipate that 2009 will be the tipping point for North American contactless payments adoption with a total market in excess of 100m contactless chip shipments expected.”