With an eye towards the future of e-commerce, Telstra, ERG and ANZ announced plans to develop a standard
platform and transaction processing joint venture for smartcards.
The companies expect smartcards to play an important role in security as
e-commerce becomes a larger chunk of the business world. The unnamed
smartcard operating joint venture will receive capital and resources from
Telstra, ERG and ANZ.
The venture will operate a centre to process transactions. Initially, the
company would accept Telstra’s and ERG’s smartcard platforms, and would
develop an interoperable, multi-application smartcard standards.
“In the future, demand for smartcards will also be driven by customer to
business e-commerce, in particular, Internet transactions, and by the need
to avoid magnetic stripe fraud,” said David Boyles, ANZ’s head of
technology, e-commerce and payments.
Smartcards are part of the plan to transform Telstra from a
telecommunications company to an e-commerce solutions leader, according to
Ted Pretty, Telstra’s group managing director for convergent business.
“This initiative will enable the smartcard industry in Australia to develop
at a faster rate,” said Peter Fogarty, ERG’s CEO. “It will continue the
trend of global rationalisation of the smartcard industry and drive the
development of a standard platform across Australia.”
The new company will support multiple applications in addition to the
e-commerce platform, added Fogarty.