About 20 active international e-payment firms have confirmed their intention to participate in the 6th edition of Card Expo Conference scheduled to hold from June 14 to 17, 2006, in Lagos.
The Conference Director, Intermarc Consulting, organiser of the annual event, Mrs. Onajite Regha, confirmed that these firms have registered and would exhibit at the three day event, adding that this latest development has shown that Nigeria is ready for e-payment services.
According to her, the firms who have confirmed their participation include: Altech, Fundamo, Itex Pty and ATM Africa from South Africa, Diebold and Oberthur from Dubai, Verifone from the United Kingdom, Muhlbauer from Germany and NPC from Egypt.
Others include Axalto from France, Lipman from Isreal, Orga from Germany and CardsNow from Malaysia
She said Lipman in conjunction with Itex Pty, south Africa, would showcase its ranges of POS terminals at the expo. Lipman's range of POS terminals comprises of a suite of NURIT and Dione product that incorporate top-level security, advanced technology and superb quality to provide retailers with a comprehensive, future-proof solution.
In the same vein, Muhlbauer, in conjunction with SecureID, their major representative in Nigeria, will be displaying latest state of the art personalisation competencies in bank, government and SIM cards at the show.
Axalto, the French firm and the world's leading provider of microprocessor cards and a major supplier of point-of-sale terminals, would also storm the expo with its range of high-tech products and services.
ATM Africa and their counterparts from China, GRG Banking Group, will also be at the fare to showcase the latest ATM technology using the Asian models that have worked successfully in south Africa.
With a full range of self-service, software, security/facility, and card-based products, as well as consulting and support services, Diebold, the foremost Dubai firm would storm the expo with its products and services.
With sales above 600 million dollars in 2005, Oberthur Card Systems one of the world's leading providers of card-based solutions, software and applications including SIM and multi-application smart cards as well as services ranging from consulting to personalization.
It is interesting to note that these foreign companies are to join about 30 other reputable Nigerian epayment and card companies being led by Interswitch limited at the show.
Meanwhile Intermarc Consulting has announced that Card Expo 2006 will feature card, e-payment, interoperability integration, switching and new business.
Regha said the Expo Conference which is specially being put together would afford attendees the benefit of understanding the key advancement that would drive the future of e-payment services globally and nationally.
The Card Expo will also give participants the opportunities to participate in about nine different fora with 40 presentations. The forums include the following.
Card and e-payment forum: this is designed to give participants a better understanding of how to make money from card business. Some of the topics to be examined are: card payment business driver, e-banking channels for mass market, post consolidation e-banking space, securing card to exploit the business opportunity in the remote and un-banked community.
Interoperability integration forum: this forum is updated to bring to fare the merits of economics of scale in technologies convergence. Topics to be examined include: interoperability and convergence as key to maximizing market potentials and growth; interoperability standards and the enabling framework and payment system interoperability: a win-win model.
Switching forum: though there are several switches in Africa, yet most card transaction are primarily off-line. This forum would seek a way to create more value for customer in a networked environment.
Topics to be looked art include, exploring new markets for multi-application cards and multi-purpose channels, using online POS terminals as building tools improved merchant retention and understanding the concept of leveraging added services on existing infrastructure.
ATM forum: this forum examines the issues with ATMs is Africa. New business forum: e-payment is gaining ground in the continent. But is it relevant to the people's social-cultural setting? Are there new applications that can be adapted to suit the purpose? This forum would examine enhancement of USB smartcard business case.
EVM & security forum: is EMV relevant to Africa. What is the updated on global implementation? What level of security do we need to protect consumer in Africa? The forum would examine the foregoing and treat such topic as global EVM drive lessons on EVM migration, building blocks for successful loyalty programs, smartcard security, biometric In Africa and secure personalization and identity theft protection.
SIM & Mobile services forum: there are big transformations in the roles and functions of SIM cards today. With 3G, what new applications and services can be expected from SIM? This forum would examine this question and more. Issues on mobile payment would also be discussed.
Source: This Day