interesting, Yes -- strange, No
I think the first question you put has an answer that stinks of suspicion, and only SMME can sort that out.
The differences between MC and SMME are vast. MC has vast resources, both financial and R&D.
SMME has no financial backers other than a small group. ceo says she has refused financial input from big investment groups because they want too much of the company, thus diluting the shares even further. [what would you want her to do? take the funds but cruel us as an outcome? or try to keep going the way she has done and make progress when she can?]
SMME says it has heaps of potential clients but none of these agreements/discussions can take shape until the verification process has been completed and a Network grants approval for the cards to operate on that platform. And I guess more funds are needed at each step along the way, like any small cap trying to find its way.
15 years? And some..! SMME wasn't SMME back then though. It was a different company doing a different thing. It has morphed several times and is now what it is now. Even in the last few months the card has changed, trying to keep up with ideas and technology.
As for MC and its intent: I did not get any positivity from that article about MC, as I wrote earlier. Its security boss was willowy in his 'enthusiasm', and quiet naive about how fingerprint biometrics works.
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