Hey Pug—saw your post on another board for this
I’ve been a mechanic repairing machines that make credit cards for over 10 years. I’m no expert on smart cards by any means, so I’ll post what little I know and I’ll see what else I can find out.
Smart cards caught on in places like Asia because they lacked the communications that we have here in the US. When we swipe a magstripe here in the US it is authenticated through phone lines. In parts of Asia this was not possible. With the combination of the chip on the card and the chip reader it could authenticate on site.
In a place where they don’t have the infrastructure we do the consumer benefited, the place where the card was used benefited, and a company like Visa benefited. Here in the US things are different. The consumer may have a little more piece of mind with the smartcard. The store gets the same amount of money, except they have the expense of adding smart card readers, or in the case of this company (EVAI) adding a phone or microphone. Visa gets the same amount of money. And who eats the cost of producing the smart card? The card itself cost’s around $3 to make compared to around $.50 for a regular magstripe card.
I’ve heard it would cost around 20 billion to change the current magstripe readers over to smart card readers across the US. The big question is does it make sense?
Smart cards are capable of holding a signature or fingerprint. Does the average consumer want to risk losing a card with this kind of stuff on it?
I think the main purpose of EVAI is for the internet. For that is does somewhat make sense. But, I have to wonder does the average consumer want a separate card just for shopping online?
To be honest, I’m not sure smart cards will ever become main stream here in the US. It just doesn’t make sense with all the cost involved. Of course for my industry I would like to see it. There is talk of stuff like fingerprint or eye scanners, but than comes a problem with the huge amount of data it would be.
Given the low cost of the stock it may be worth the risk to invest a little in it. But, I believe payday would be a long ways away. I’m kind of thinking there is another small company (one we both know about—concerns ab471) that could take us to the bank in the next few months.
