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Technology Stocks : Racom Systems (RCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gutterball who wrote (138)	7/10/1998 7:19:00 PM
From: Victor Lambe	Respond to of 468

Here's my take.. The article suggests that Banks won't be the first to take-up smart cards. It suggests that the smartcard Killer-app is possibly Transit (eg. London, Washington where Cubics? have sold Racom based Smartcard systems). The transit authorities will probably capitalize on their huge card holding population by installing services from financial institutions on these cards - but the initial application will be transit. London Transit is already trying to get financial institution interested, and I'll bet they are finding plenty of interest because once a couple of million Londoners have a smart card in their wallet the opportunities will be huge and the momementum will be unstoppable. Similarly, in the Middle East where Intag and BLC look set to provide ID cards (for the Hajj and National ID) the Vendors and financial institutions will no doubt be falling over each other to include loyalty schemes (with first time incentives etc.) on the very first card issued. The beauty of transit apps is that contactless is a huge advantage. The applications that hitch a ride on the transit bus will allow consumers to appreciate how easy it is to leave a contactless card in their wallet (rather than fumbling with wallets, cards and shopping at the same time). From there contact cards will pretty soon be fondly remembered but completely unmarketable. It might take the U.S. a few years to catch on - but it will happen.