Rambus Ecebs launches dual-interface smart card

Named ‘Diamond’, the new card is designed for organisations delivering multipurpose customer applications such as payment and transport ticketing.

The new Ecebs card meets the EMV global standard for chip-based debit and credit card transactions and can support both Chip & PIN transactions and contactless payments. It is also fully certified to the UK Governments transport specification ITSO and has the facility to load many more applications both pre or post issuance. In addition the card includes an OSPT CIPURSE application developed to the specification issued by the OSPT Alliance, an international group of leading technology companies defining a new open standard for secure transit fare collection solutions.

The Diamond card offers more than double the data space available for smart ticketing when compared to a DESFire (4k & 8k) card and other similar products. This means card holders will not face the inconvenience of running out of space in their ticket wallet. This is a crucial benefit, ensuring that product owners such as transport operators have the flexibility to offer a large variety of commercial and concessionary products without concern over the ability their customer have to store them.

Pat Curran, Executive Chairman of Ecebs said: “The real power of the Diamond card is its flexibility. It can work as a payment card, just like the bank card you have in your wallet today or it can be used to ride a bus, train or ferry. However it can also be used to deliver services and entitlement for local government as well as delivering loyalty benefits. The applications are far reaching and crucially the card works with international schemes as well as within the UK. As an example our cards are already in wide circulation throughout the UK and the Middle East providing services of this nature.

“Commercial smart ticketing deployments are growing in number and scale, with a conservative estimate of 1.5 billion smart transport transactions every year by 2014 in the UK alone. The combination of the global smart ticketing and payments market will create real growth potential for a card that can not only offer a wide range of services but is fast, cost effective and highly secure.”

The launch of the Diamond card means Ecebs can offer organisations the ability to develop white-label, highly secure payment schemes alongside loyalty, transport ticketing and other services. Potential users include retail chains with a significant presence at major transport hubs such as airports or train stations.

Pat Curran added: “The Diamond Card can be used for almost anything; with its ITSO certificate, CIPURSE app and EMV app it can address a combined payment and transport market on both domestic and international scale.”

“The card is price competitive with rival offerings but offers considerably more features and benefits than its rivals. The inclusion of a MIFARE interface means that legacy applications can be supported as well as new applications, minimising the need for infrastructure replacement. This is available as MIFARE 1k, MIFARE 4K or can be disabled entirely. ”

The Diamond Card includes a contactless ‘wireless’ interface, ideal for a transport application where customers can use their Diamond card to simply ‘tap & go’ or can collect tickets at existing contactless terminals (such as those found on buses and station gates). However diamond also supports a contact ‘gold button’ interface which means customers can also take advantage of the widely available contact based terminal infrastructure to allow them to load smart transport top ups or tickets and entitlements from existing ‘contact only’ terminals such as ATM cash machines and Chip & PIN terminals. This means that the card can be used at the maximum number of available points of service creating a wider availability of acceptance and better customer experience.

About Rambus

Rambus is a premier silicon IP and chip provider that makes data faster and safer. Throughout our 30-year history, Rambus has led the industry with innovations and IP solutions that solve the fundamental challenges faced by leading-edge computing systems. We have done so by predicting and addressing the major disruptions in technology development, building a portfolio of foundational IP and offering solutions that enhance the performance and security of the most demanding applications.

Leveraging our semiconductor expertise, Rambus solutions speed performance, expand capacity and improve security. From data center and edge to artificial intelligence and automotive, our interface and security IP, and memory interface chips enable SoC and system designers to deliver their vision of the future.