Content area
Full text
MANHASSET, N.Y. - Cepsco LLC, the Common Electronic Purse Specification body founded in 1999 to champion a global standard for e-purse platforms, has launched a partners group to promote acceptance of its Common E Purse Specification (CEPS).
Cepsco announced the group at the CardTech/SecurTech trade show in Las Vegas. Member companies include smartcard manufacturer Schlumberger Ltd. (Montrouge, France), semiconductor supplier Infineon Technologies (Munich, Germany), card system provider Cubic Transportation Systems (San Diego), chip provider Philips Semiconductors (Eindhoven, Netherlands), card provider JCB International Ltd. (Tokyo), financial services company Citigroup Inc. (NewYork), electronic-payment terminal manufacturer Ingenico Group (France) and the Electronic Commerce Security Technology Research Association (Tokyo).
The formation of the group is a step forward for the e-purse, an application for chip cards in which prepaid funds are stored on the card for use in purchasing goods and services. There are 100 million e-purse cards circulating in Europe, where one in three people now carries an epurse card.
'Local and proprietary'
To date, however, e-purse efforts have been "very local and proprietary," said Kaye Burns, senior...