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Smart Insights Weekly is a weekly newsletter covering the smart card industry, its businesses, its technologies, and of course, its markets as well as its technology suppliers. Smart Insights covers all the major trends in the industry, it encompasses worldwide business, public and private standardization bodies, industry analysts and also the people belonging to the Smart Card Industry community.

Smart Insights Reports cover the smart card or secure transaction industry. They are industry reports covering a technology, a geographical area or a major issue in the industry. Smart Insights Reports include qualitative and quantitative analysis. They are built on a combination of primary research and secondary research, supported by an intimate knowledge thanks to years of experience in the smart card industry.

Smart Insights publications are brought to you by Thierry Spanjaard who has more than 20 years experience in the industry, in a variety of positions.

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PayPal just unveiled a new Send Money application for iPhone, which gives PayPal and iPhone customers secure mobile access to their money and convenient features for everyday life, including Bump money transfers, Split Check and Collect Money. The announcement of this new application, is just another step in PayPal’s strategy to replace money as much as the company can.

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The Unique Identification (UID) project has received a massive hike of INR 19 billion (EUR 308.8 million) in the budgetary allocation for 2010-11. The sum is likely to drive investments in smart card technologies, where chips, software and biometrics play a big role.

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On March 12th, 2010, TPG Capital (Texas Pacific Group) sold 5.704 million of Gemalto shares, representing 6.5% of total shareholder’s equity. The stock was placed at EUR 31.5 apiece, 3.5% lower than the quote of the day, giving a total consideration of EUR 179.7 million. As a consequence, the stock dropped 2.93% on the same day. Goldman Sachs, which was in charge of placing the shares, hares were sold to private investors in the US and in the UK, and potentially in Europe. Until this sale, TPG was the first stockholder in Gemalto.

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New figures released by UK Cards Association (formerly APACS) show that total fraud losses on UK cards fell by 28% between 2008 and 2009 to GBP 440.3 million (EUR 484.3 million) – a decrease of GBP 170 million (EUR 187 million) on the previous year’s total. The combined force of industry initiatives such as: chip and PIN; the increasing use of fraud detection tools by banks and retailers; and the work of the DCPCU (Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit), the banking-sponsored special police unit, have all helped contribute to this fall. It is the first time that card fraud has decreased since 2006.

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DeviceFidelity, a provider of contactless microSD solutions for mobile phones, announced the availability of its In2Pay microSD v2 for trials in Q2/2010. In2Pay v2 adds support for EMV-compliant payment applications and is Mifaretechnology ready, enabling a variety of payment, transit and access control applications to be deployed using the common product platform. Compliant with Global Platform specifications and JavaCard standards, In2Pay microSD v2 offers an open architecture that provides issuers and wireless carriers the ability to manage their applications over-the-air.

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Tyfone announced that its SideTap MicroSD card versions are completed and will be available via partners to consumers in H2/2010. MicroSD memory cards enabled by Tyfone’s patented SideTap contactless payment technology with integrated 13.56MHz coil can be used by hundreds of millions of mobile phones at thousands of existing contactless payment terminals worldwide. These cards will work in phones with MicroSD slot on any side of the phone – top, left, right, bottom or back.

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Fraunhofer researchers are devising and facilitating technical systems for the use and security of the new digitally-readable personal identity card, on behalf of the German federal ministry of the interior (BMI).

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London transit authority Transport for London is dumping its Mifare Classic cards and will start to move its popular Oyster fare-collection program to Mifare DESFire technology. In 2008, Mifare Classic cards has been cracked by Dutch hackers which raised concerns about contactless cards security (cf. Smart Insights Weekly #08-11).

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American Banknote Brazil just announced the acquisition of Spanish Microelectronica Española (MEE), a subsidiary of SanDisk Corporation, for EUR 13 million. The project ahs already been approved by ABnote Board of Directors. The company expects to complete the acquisition, paid in cash before the end of this month. 
 The president of ABnote, Sidney Levy, said in a statement that with this operation "we become qualified to meet the demand for SIM cards from all four Brazilian mobile operators." 


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Researchers at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory have uncovered flaws in the Chip and PIN system that allow criminals to use stolen credit and debit cards without knowing the correct PIN.

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