Credit-card processing software is arguably more applicable in this country than Smart Cards.
Although it has been reported that experts predict smart cards will be a billion-dollar industry in just five years, many insiders believe that smart-card technology will never catch on in the United States as well as it has in Europe and Asia.
Smart cards differentiate themselves from other plastic cards with magnetic stripes by containing an embedded silicon computer chip that stores and processes values specific to each individual user.
While an innovative idea in other parts of the world, this product doesn't quite meet the high-tech procedures already in place here in the states. "Internationally, smart cards are huge," said Chris Henson, account manager for Plastic Printing Innovations in San Diego, Calif. "Here in the United States, they are not as necessary mainly because our computer networks and telecommunication set-up is far more advanced than most countries. Therefore, we really don't need to have the card doing the computations. All we need is a code integrated in a magnetic stripe to activate the information and process it."
In addition, smart cards are both costly and time-consuming for manufacturers. "They are very expensive to make and are extremely difficult to produce," noted Henson. "It's just a matter of finding a use for them and I don't think they will ever be big here."
And, according to Chester Ritchie, vice president of marketing for CAM Commerce Solutions in Fountain Valley, Calif., there isn't as much of an application for smart cards here as there is in Europe. "The smart cards are applicable to the currency conversions that occur throughout Europe," said Ritchie. "However, I haven't seen anything comparable here."
In fact, CAM Commerce Solutions created its own software that supersedes the need for a card with an embedded chip. "Our X-Charge software keeps all those stored values within the application itself," he said.
X-Charge is CAM Commerce Solutions' proprietary credit card processing software that replaces the concrete terminals that people normally swipe their credit cards through. "We see a lot of people switching from the older obsolete terminal products to software be-cause they want an integrated system," said Ritchie.
What is unique about X-Charge is that it not only performs credit card transactions quickly and securely, but it also handles gift and loyalty cards and computes customer reward points. "X-Charge is a good solution for retailers because it provides a point-of-sale system for them. They don't need separate pieces of equipment to run both the credit and loyalty cards," said Ritchie.
Deemed by CAM Commerce Solution as an "extreme bank terminal on your PC," X-Charge provides the user with one receipt for many different transactions. "On the same receipt that records the goods that the consumer purchased, there will be their signature, loyalty card information and—if the merchant is running some type of rewards program—all of their accumulated points."
CAM Commerce Solutions not only manufactures credit card-processing software, it distributes it through various resellers and also serves as an independent distributor for manufacturers of other types of plastic products.
According to Ritchie, his company is just starting to delve into distributing gift cards. "The retailers that we target have anywhere from one to around 50 stores. Gift cards are not popular with the smaller retailers."
However, loyalty cards do work well for companies with even just one location. "Every time customers enter the store they swipe their logoed frequent buyer loyalty card and our system automatically keeps track of all their acquired points. In turn, that drives business back into the store for the retailer," said Ritchie.
In addition, this software also has an option that prints out the gift certificate at the point of sale. "In that way, one doesn't even need the plastic," said Ritchie.
By Jennifer Hans
- Companies:
- Plastic Printing
- Plastic Products
- People:
- Chester Ritchie
- Chris Henson