The developing of smart technology. First smart-cards appeared in France in the middle 70 s. The main advantages as compared to magnetic line cards are higher reliability, security and multifunctionality. The main disadvantage that it is still difficult to get over is high prime cost. Nevertheless, in early 90 s rapid growth of smart-cards market took place.
Thus, at the last smart-technology forum SmartCard Forum, hosted in the USA, statistical reports showed that the majority of magnetic line cards owner would use smart-cards as electronic wallet if their bank issued such cards. But financial institutes that working with smart-cards have a lot of questions at the moment. Many of these questions still do not have answers. Here are the most popular ones ü How high is the level of smart-cards security ü What schemes should be used for transactions open or secured ü How available and reasonable is the complete replacement of cash with electronic money ü What authorization mode is better on-line or off-line The fact of existence of these questions demonstrates that there is a high interest in smart-cards connected with an ability to transform little sum payments into cashless payments.
Visa researches show that annually more then 1,8 trillion dollars happen to less then 10 dollars transaction. Obviously operation of these payment through electronic cards is more than attractive.
But the organization of such transformation hits upon serious problems even in well developed countries. In this case solving this problem with a help of electronic wallets seems to be the most effective. According to Jean Jacques Debone, the president of European branch of Visa International the development of smart-cards, allowing the client to make less then 8 dollar payments, will treble bank s cards profit