Magazines Archives - 2011 May

Cartes in Asia attracts leading players from the global payments market
Story 5 - Review

CATERING to the booming payments market in the Asia-Pacific, Cartes in Asia 2011 — the second-edition exhibition and conference focusing on smart technologies — attracted 3,056 trade visitors from 61 countries and territories, an increase of 8% compared to the inaugural event last year.

Held at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong from March 29-31, the show featured the latest products and services offered by over 120 smart-technology companies from across the world.

Michael Weatherseed, security business event director at Comexposium, the organiser of the event, reported a yearon- year increase in attendance numbers across the exhibition and conference: “We were delighted to see world leaders American Express, Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient join the exhibition this year, which is a reflection of the growing strength of Cartes in Asia and the importance of the smart-technology market in the Asia-Pacific.”

Other exhibitors included Datacard, Eastcompeace, HID Global, Verifone, Watchdata and Zebra Technologies. They represented 23 countries including Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Norway, the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Russia, Taiwan, the UAE and the US. The exhibition also featured pavilions from mainland China and France.

At the same time, organisations such as Global Platform, MasterCard, SIM Alliance, PayPal and Pricewaterhouse- Coopers headlined the co-located twoday conference, the Asian Card Summit.

“We also saw a significant growth in visitors from South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines at the exhibition and conference with 343 delegates who were particularly interested in e-banking, and convergence and mobility. We also had great success with the Asian Card Summit, with 221 participants attending the round table gathering of the industry’s top leaders,” Weatherseed added.

The conference attracted visitors from the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand as well as Europe, the US and the Middle East. Representing the banking sector, smart-card manufacturers, and electronics, telecom and IT security industries, the attendees came to see and hear about the latest innovative technologies for card manufacturing, authentication solutions, payment solutions and mobile security.

The main issues discussed during the Asian Card Summit were mobile payments and services, NFC (nearfield communication) and contactless applications, e-transactions and e- banking, payment card readers and terminals, the Internet of Things and M2M (machine-to-machine) applications, said Comexposium.

“As one of the most established and large-scale card and payment exhibitions in Asia, Cartes in Asia offered us a dynamic platform to showcase a broad spectrum of smart-card applications and innovations. During the prolific three-day agenda, we managed to reach top-notch attendees from different industries in the Asia-Pacific. We will definitely continue to support this high-impact industry event,” said Cynthia Wong, director of marketing for the Asia-Pacific at HID Global, which was one of the exhibitors.

Furthermore, Comexposium also presented the Asian SESAMES Awards, with the top award going to Gemalto for its smart badge holder, which enables workforces to use their corporate badges to access their encrypted e-mails and sign documents electronically from their smartphones and other devices.

To view full story, get a copy of Retail Asia. To subscribe, please download the subscription form from http://www.retailasiaonline.com/subscription.html