'India is emerging as a formidable market'

What do you think is the rationale behind holding technology expos such as
the Smart card Expo?

Because of the globalization that has happened in India in the last ten
years, the economy is on the rise which means that lifestyles of Indian
consumers is also on the rise. Their ability and appetite for more sophisticated
and expensive services and products has increased, hence, India has made the
transition from being just a provider of products and services to the western
market to emerge as a formidable market. Just like any developing economy our
market place is more willing to pay for efficiency and convenience and that's
what is driving this trend.

What is the difference between a Smart Card and a credit card?

A smart card is a chip, which can store business rules and information, and
you can program the card to behave differently in different conditions. That is
the fundamental difference. A simple card, such as a credit card, can behave
only in one way but a smart card can be programmed to integrate into many
different applications.

What is the current trend, and which countries are driving adoption of the
smart card technology?

The current trend is towards contact-less smart card, which uses GPRS
identification system. The European countries, followed by south East Asia or
the Asia Pacific region, lead the adoption; I believe that US is still behind.
The smart card is increasingly being used in retail, and transit where you have
one card for any public transport. The public sector is also looking at
e-payments through smart card. E-passport is another application, which will be
accepted very quickly in India because it doesn't want to slow down its
interaction with the world.

What are your views on combining this technology with mobiles in India?
Will there be a change in handset costs?

Mobile adoption in India has been very good. It has also proliferated to the
lower segments of the country. So there is no need to create another channel to
take new solutions to these people. Cost is the function of how you model the
structure. If we put a chip in the cell phone it costs money, but who pays for
it? There are many business models that can take care of the fact that
incremental cost is not put on to the consumer, and if we can do that, adoption
will be really fast.

What will drive its success in India?

Technology doesn't get accepted only because it's cool. It gets accepted
only when it makes sense to the consumers and the stakeholders. You can push a
technology to the society but the society needs to pull it. So, I think as a
society and as an industry, we have to figure out incentive mechanisms for
people to switch to the system. I don't have a ready answer but every society
and economy has to figure that out before the technology becomes mainstream.

Sonia Sharma

sonias@cybermedia.co.in