Infineon contactless chips for MasterCard

Infineon Technologies would provide contactless chips for select MasterCard
Global payment schemes, which are being introduced in 13 countries worldwide,
including Taiwan, Malaysia, Australia and the US. Designed to make payment
transactions with more convenient magnetic-stripe cards or conventional
chip-based cards, the future debit and credit cards will contain a chip
featuring a contactless interface and state-of-the-art cryptographic
capabi­lities, an Infineon statement said.

Future debit and credit cards will contain a chip featuring a contactless interface and state-of-the-art cryptographic capabi­lities

The company said that at least 400 million chip-based payment cards were
issued worldwide in 2006, with MasterCard and Visa programs alone accounting for
about 17 million contactless chip cards.

According to market research company Frost and Sullivan, the conventional
contactless payment smart card market is expected to see a compound annual
growth rate of 63 percent over the next five years. Dr Helmut Gassel, VP and
GM-Chip Card and Security Ics, Infineon Technologies, said, “Our combined
expertise in security and contactless technology enables us to be the volume
supplier not only in payment, but also in other major contactless markets such
as e-passport deployments in the US and other countries or public transport
projects such as 'T-Money' in Korea.”