Expert Analysis Written By Jafizwaty Ishahak and Navin Rajendra from FROST & SULLIVAN.

Overview of World Banking and Payment Markets

The growth of the world banking and loyalty smart cards market has been slow in the early years. Nevertheless, there is a momentum being picked up by the market, especially in last year. In the last year alone, the top 4 banking smart card vendors have been able to ship more than 360 million banking smart cards, globally. A few countries in Asia Pacific such as Malaysia and Taiwan have already completed the EMV migration exercise, with other countries such as South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong following suite. Contactless has been found to be a decisive tool in the growth of banking cards across the globe, irrespective of the business case.

Contactless smart card has received a boost from developments within the NFC space and contactless payment programs around the world over the past year. Various trends unique to each region, pertaining to contactless uptake have been witnessed, which has helped drive contactless smart card shipment, globally in 2006. In the North American region, contactless payment rollouts has seen high profile coverage, even from early stages of pilots and rollouts.