Continuing its work with the Silicon Trust, Krowne has developed, in conjunction with Infineon Technologies, a new strategic addition to its popular partner platform that focuses on System-on-Card.

By encouraging companies that are looking to biometrics and payment solutions to join and participate in the Silicon Trust program, Krowne hopes to encourage co-operation and networking between those partners working in the payment or fintech arena and those in the ID and government sectors. The challenges for both sectors are not as diverse as one would think and by encouraging cross-pollination of ideas and approaches, partners of the Silicon Trust program could reap some real synergistic rewards.

More information can be found at the Silicon Trust website: silicon trust.org or read more about the approach below.

Meeting today’s payment challenges

With the rising acceptance of smart and contactless payments, there is a growing popularity for ‘system-on-cards’ (e.g. with integrated biometric authentication functionality), as well as IoT payments that focus on wearable payment accessories. This growth of digital payments also requires enhanced security through encryption and tokenization for cards and additional form factors.

The trends are heightening the need for security and performance, especially in a multi-application context. As popular payment methods extend beyond cash and smart cards towards contactless and mobile form factors, hardware-based security mechanisms featuring embedded Secure Elements (eSE) will become increasingly important. These Secure Elements will protect the huge data streams flowing from digital and IoT transactions, safe- guard payment transactions, and protect the identity and integrity of end users.

In this new and complex multi-channel environment, hardware-based IoT security capabilities have to be built into each application layer to ensure that users do not have to worry about fraud or theft of their identity.

Companies engaging within these smart payment eco-systems must ensure the necessary contactless performance in terms of card robustness, flexibility and endurance, while mastering the full ecosystem spanning IC’s, inlays, packages, approved payment applets and personalization. they must also deliver hardware-based security capabilities to protect payment data in complex multi-channel environments as well as supporting multiple international and national standards – both proprietary and open.

Payments are going digital – with today’s users expecting a fast, convenient and often contactless experience with the option of using different form factors. In fact, contactless payment cards and “tap and go” transactions using cards, wearables or mobile devices are increasingly replacing cash and contact-based transactions. By 2023, ABI expects that approximately 70 percent of all payment transactions will rely on contactless technologies such as NFC (Near Field Communication). 

The contactless mandates issued by VISA, MasterCard and American Express at the start of 2018 reflect their commitment to expanding the infrastructure support- ing contactless and dual-interface payments. This means that more and more consumers will be able to simply and securely tap and pay. 

At the same time, the overwhelming success of contactless cards is driving demand for wearable payments. Gartner forecasts that wearable form factors are set to rise dramatically in popularity, with global sales projected to grow from around 310 million devices in 2017 to over 500 million by 2021. Many experts have earmarked payment as the “killer app” for wearables. According to a MasterCard press release, over 175 million Europeans are interested in paying with wearable devices. This press release states that almost one quarter of all Europeans expect to start using “tap and go” contactless wearables such as smart watches, bracelets and key rings for everyday expenses. 

Working with Infineon Technologies

The Silicon Trust works closely with Infineon Technologies, the leader in digital and payment security, who offers the market’s broadest portfolio of payment solutions. infineon’s end-to-end offering extends from optimized online-only and DDA (Dynamic Data Authentication) contact devices to high-speed contactless controllers based on SOLID FLASH™ for very fast time-to-market, flexible memory scalability and superior contactless performance. Customers increasingly rely on their pre-certified SECORA™ Pay EMV solutions incorporating the latest payment applets for fast time-to-market thanks to pre-certified solutions requiring only paper approvals for card or device manufacturers.