HONG KONG, Dec. 23, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- With over 100
million RFID travel smart cards in circulation, Asia Pacific is the
world-leader for secure and convenient travel. Experts believe that
this tech savvy region could be the first adopters of NFC enabled
mobile payment technology for future mobility solutions. CARTES in
Asia exhibition and conference will showcase both RFID and NFC
technologies at AsiaWorld-Expo, Hong Kong, 28 & 29 March 2012.
This is a must-attend event for decision makers from government,
transport, telecoms, banking, administrative, security and retail
industries.
Asia Pacific's early adopters
Hong Kong was the first to use an RFID smart card system in 1997.
The Octopus card is now used by 95% of the population with 11
million transactions daily across metro, buses, ferries and more
than 10,000 retail outlets. Many Asia Pacific cities and regions
use similar cards. Major cities in Japan have lots of different
types of transport cards. Beijing and Shanghai commuters use the
Yikatong. Singaporeans use the EZ-Link smart card. Taiwan has the
EasyCard and most recently (December) New Delhi's government
launched a "Common Mobility Card" called More. New Zealand is
looking to launch similar technology to the Octopus in 2012.
The future -- NFC and mobile payments
With advances in NFC technology and strong support from the
government, NFC mobile phone payments may replace smart cards
across major cities such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai and
Singapore because these cities have:
-- A technology savvy urban population with more than
100% mobile phone penetration
-- Governments strongly advocating the use of technology,
including NFC, to manage transport
-- An agreement between all local transport companies to
take on transport/NFC projects co-ordinated by central
government.
Isabelle Alfano, Director of CARTES events, Comexposium, said:
"Asia Pacific is way ahead of many countries around the world in
terms of using smart cards. As RFID technology expands across the
region into the smaller towns and cities it will bring many
opportunities for suppliers of this technology. But at the same
time, advances in NFC might mean that mobile payments will be the
next step, and the general public will use mobile phones to pay for
transport and groceries and other utilities.
"With a mature contactless acceptance infrastructure already
existing, mass transit ticketing has always been considered as the
killer app in market development of NFC before it can be extended
to other multi-application uses," added Alfano.
Sources reference: UmmId, Smart Insights White Paper "Transport in
Asia-Pacific 2011"
About CARTES in Asia
Date: 28-29 March 2012
Opening times: 9.30am to 5.30pm
Place: Hong Kong - AsiaWorld-Expo
Organiser: Comexposium
Website: www.cartes-asia.com
For trade visitors only
Follow us on Twitter @_cartes, and use the #cartesAsia
hashtag
SOURCEļ¹CARTES