health cards

EU funding for first trialsof cross-border cardThe European Commission has agreed tofund an initial trial of Netc@rds, Europe’’scross-border health card project.

The trial is to be run by partners from Austria,France, Germany and Greece, on behalf of theirnational healthcare and insurance authorities.Main Health Insurance (RAMQ) from Québec(Canada) is also to cooperate in the project andthere will be support from BCSS (BanqueCarrefour de la Sécurité Sociale), the Belgiansocial security agency.

Target card-users are tourists, students andworkers from Austria, France, Germany andGreece who are travelling or are temporarilyposted abroad. The card will store thecardholder’s relevant E-111 or E-128 certificate– the forms that certify an individual’s right tohealth care inside the EU – and guarantee accessto health care in participating countries.

The trial will pave the way for EU-widedeployment of a smart card-based cross-borderproof of entitlement to health care. The trialfollows a long R&D phase carried out by theNETLINK and TRANSCARD groupings. Thehealth card programme is intended to encouragegreater mobility of citizens across all EU countries.

Project coordinator for Netc@rds is to beSesam-Vitale, the French agency responsible forthe country’s national smart card-based health cardproject. In the first phase, the Netc@rds projectwill digitise the E-111 and E-128 paper forms;participants will draw on administrative dataalready stored on existing national health smartcards or download data from central networks.

The Netc@rds trial has six goals:• Replacing the paper forms E-111 (for

tourists) and E-128 (students and migrantworkers) with electronic ‘e-forms’;

• Implementing networks, at selected pilotsites, through which health care providerscan download the necessary forms;

• Implementing systems for telecom networksto handle health care procedures based onsmart cards;

• Obtaining consensus between the partnerson the new procedures for day-to-dayoperations;

• Obtaining overall consensus between thedifferent participants (sickness fundorganisations, health care providers andpublic health organisations);

• Reaching agreement between national healthcare providers on conditions for access tohealth care services in other EU countries.

Contact: Netc@rds Consortium at sesam-vitale, Tel:+33 2 4357 4459, Email: international.project@sesam-vitale.fr

payment cards

SchlumbergerSema tobe joint supplier ofBarclays’ EMV cardsSchlumbergerSema has been selected byBarclaycard as joint supplier of its new chip-based payment cards. The sole supplier untilnow has been Oberthur, who will retain 50%of the contract.

SchlumbergerSema will supply as many as fivemillion of its e-Galleon cards to Barclaycardduring 2003.

When cardholders use the new chip cards –which incorporate the international EuropayMasterCard Visa (EMV) banking application –at the point of sale, they will identify themselvesby entering their PIN code.

The first trials of the EMV-plus-PIN cards are due to begin in Northampton during2003. Leading store groups, including Safewayand Marks and Spencer, are now implementingthe necessary point-of-sale and back office systemsto handle the new authentication procedures.

Contact: Caroline Crouch at SchlumbergerSema, Tel:+44 20 7830 4233, Email:ccrouch@slb.com

id cards

Drexler biometricsystems to be tested atUS border crossingsThe US Space and Naval Warfare SystemsCenter at San Diego, California, is to test 24biometric ID verification systems, suppliedby Drexler Technology, at selected airportsand border crossing points.

The systems are to be installed at Los Angelesand Atlanta airports and at four US–Mexicoborder crossing points in Arizona, California andTexas.

The LaserCard ID verification systems aredesigned to function with some 5 millionDrexler-manufactured Laser Visa border crossingcards; these cards have been issued to frequentvisitors by the US Immigration and Naturali-zation Service (INS) and the US Department ofState since 1998.

The new verification systems will confirm thevalidity of the cards, read and display digitallystored photographs and other data, and verifythe cardholders’ live fingerprints against finger-print templates that were stored on the cardswhen they were first issued.

Contact: Johanna Protsik at Drexler Technology, Tel:+1 650 969 7277, www.lasercard.com

3Card Technology Today November/December 2002

news

• The UK Safeway store group has commis-sioned IBM to implement PIN-based chip cardtechnology across the majority of its 500 UKstores. EMV smart payment cards are set toreplace the common magnetic swipe card in theUK over the next three years, so that by 2005 allface-to-face credit- and debit-card transactionswill need to be authorised by a customer keyingin a personal identification number (PIN). Thechip and PIN programme is expected to reduceplastic card fraud in the UK by up to 75%.Ingenico is to provide the chip card readers, andSTS the data processing software.

• Visa EU has awarded a contract to the UK’sNomad Software to link its new person-to-person cross-border money transfer systemwith the rest of Visa’s network. The new Visaservice will be launched by the end of 2002and will allow Visa cardholders to transfer funds directly from card to card. Nomadsupplies electronic payment solutions based around its Cortex package, which offerscard management, authorisation, switchingand terminal management products...

• ...Another new customer for Nomad’sCortex software is Croatian-based Hypo Alpe-Adria-Banka (HAAB), which is to use thesystem to handle cross-border card issuing andATM transactions through its sister bank inBosnia Herzegovina. The new service meansthat all HAAB’s customers in both Croatiaand Bosnia Herzegovina will now have fullaccess to the bank’s ATMs.

• Loyalty specialist Welcome Real-time saysthat Axess, a MasterCard-branded EMV creditcard provided by leading Turkish bankAkbank and powered by Welcome’s smart cardtechnology, has gained 1 million customers inits first eight months. Akbank’s credit cardportfolio has increased by 45% and the bank’sshare of the Turkish credit card market hasincreased by 53%. Akbank General ManagerZafer Kurtul, said: “With Axess, the consumeris offered advantages such as the chance ofwinning surprise gifts, the concept of ‘chipmoney’, which can be spent as soon as it isearned, and special promotions.”

• Drexler Technology has received a $7.4million order for its LaserCards, through Infor-mation Spectrum, a prime contractor to the USgovernment. The order is part of the five-yearsub-contract, worth a maximum $81 million,for optical memory cards for use as Immigrationand Naturalization Service Green Card perman-ent resident cards and as State Department LaserVisa border crossing cards, which are required by

frequent visitors from Mexico.

in brief

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