Smart-Card Based Electronic Commerce: Characteristics and Roles

Based largely on its potential as an electronic cash substitute for low-value transactions, the market for smart-cards has been predicted to be US$9 billion by the year 2000. The numerous international pilot implementations of smart-card systems appear to support this prediction. Compared with the number of pilots, however, there has been remarkably few full scale rollouts of a broad-based product. Four diverse smart-card pilot implementations in Australia were investigated and analyzed to better understand the nature of smart-card systems. The objective was to propose a basis for further research into the costs and the benefits and thus the drivers and inhibitors of specific smart-card implementations. The mini cases indicate that the costs and benefits of smartcard implementation may be dependent on the specific characteristics of the system and on the specific roles adopted by the major players. A structure of system characteristics/ features and roles/functions which can be utilized for further research into the drivers and inhibitors of smart-card implementation is proposed. A range of other research issues is also identified.