GSA SmartPay Card
In 2014 government agencies spent almost $26.4 billion in 2014 through 90 million transactions, mostly with the GSA SmartPay Purchase Card. There are currently over three million government purchase cards in circulation.
Obama Pay
While largely ceremonial, President Obama today signed an executive order at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau mandating the use of smart payment cards in the U.S. for government payments. The payment transistion in the U.S. from mag stripe/signature card payments to Chip/PIN (EMV) is already underway and will be in full steam in 2015.
INSIDE Secure Awards
Paris-based INSIDE Secure has received recognition from five organizations covering information security, semiconductor and mobile payments. INSIDE Secure provides comprehensive embedded security solutions.
GSA Reports Fabless Companies Funded in July 2011
The Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) released July statistics from its Global Semiconductor Funding, IPO and M&A update. In July, four semiconductor companies raised $81.6 million, down 46.8 percent from the $153.5 million raised in June 2011. However, the dollar amount total increased 92.9 percent from the $42.3 million raised in July 2010. The number of deals closed decreased by eight MoM and by three YoY. Meanwhile, fabless companies were the only semiconductor companies funded and two semiconductor companies filed for an initial public offering. The number of semiconductor mergers and acquisitions (M&As) announced increased by three MoM and one YoY.
Department of Energy Deploys J.P. Morgan Charge Card Program
J.P. Morgan’s Commercial Card Solutions unit announced that its Department of Energy client expanded its “GSA SmartPay2” charge card program by enabling one of its major contractors to use J.P. Morgan’s Single-Use Accounts solution to make electronic card payments to its vendors. Subsequently, CWI pays vendors more quickly, continues to reduce its paper-based payment processes, further increases payment security, and reaps the benefit of collecting financial rebates and expects to have more than 100 of its largest vendors accepting Single-Use Account payments by year-end. SUA helps expand CWI’s SmartPay2 program participation by including large-dollar payments.
atsec to attend PCI Security Standards Council Meeting
atsec will be attending and hosting the 2011 PCI-SSC Community Meeting conference in Scottsdale, AZ where it will offer information about its formal assessment services to the PCI-DSS, payment application testing (PA-DSS), and ASV scanning related services including mainframe expertise, risk assessment, penetration testing, consulting related to integrated management systems. On hand will be atsec staff, addressing the range of IT security testing and evaluation services under other schemes, including Common Criteria evaluation, FIPS 140-2 cryptographic module and cryptographic algorithm testing, GSA FIPS 201 personal identity verification evaluation and testing, NASPO audits, and the contribution these can make to PCI DSS compliance.
ClickandBuy Appoints New CEO
Peter Vesco will replace Charles Fränkl as ClickandBuy’s new CEO. Bringing with him expertise gained as President and Managing Director for Northern Europe at Hypercom, Vesco has many years’ experience in the payment market. He was also CEO of GSA (Germany-Switzerland-Austria) and Italian operations at FirstData and COO of GSA and Italian operations at Atos Worldline With this, Frank Stoffer will assume the position of CFO and Managing Director of ClickandBuy Holding GmbH in addition to his current management activities at CBS GmbH, bringing with him many years of experience in the finance area of Deutsche Telekom.
U.S. Bank Lands Amtrak Card Services
U.S. Bank has been awarded a contract by Amtrak to provide the national passenger rail service with purchasing and travel card services under the GSA “SmartPay 2” program. The contract is the first awarded under the GSA SmartPay 2 program since the 2008 government-wide re-competition. In that re-competition, U.S. Bank increased its market share to…
HID Global Gets FIPS 201 Mag Stripe Reader Certification
HID Global has expanded its “multiCLASS” Magnetic Stripe line of readers available on the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) FIPS 201 Evaluation Program’s list of approved products to now include non-keypad readers. The listing enables U.S. Government organizations to purchase HID Global’s latest physical access reader products as they begin to implement migration programs from legacy magnetic stripe (magstripe) cards to contactless 13.56 MHz FIPS 201 credentials, for both single- and two-factor authentication scenarios. The “multiCLASS” line of multi-technology readers allows an agency’s access control system to function properly during the transition from current card technology to new FIPS 201 card requirements and contain features to simplify the conversion to the new standard because they are capable of simultaneously reading legacy cards and the new FIPS 201 cards. HID Global has also achieved UL294/cUL outdoor certification on all “multiCLASS” Magnetic Stripe readers.
HID Global Announces Magnetic Stripe Reader FIPS 201 Certification
HID Global has expanded its “multiCLASS” Magnetic Stripe line of readers available on the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) FIPS 201 Evaluation Program’s list of approved products to now include non-keypad readers. The listing enables U.S. Government organizations to purchase HID Global’s latest physical access reader products as they begin to implement migration programs from legacy magnetic stripe (magstripe) cards to contactless 13.56 MHz FIPS 201 credentials, for both single- and two-factor authentication scenarios. HID Global’s “multiCLASS” line of multi-technology readers allows an agency’s access control system to function properly during the transition from current card technology to new FIPS 201 card requirements. The multiCLASS readers contain patented features that simplify the conversion to the new standard because they are capable of simultaneously reading legacy cards and the new FIPS 201 cards.
J.P. Morgan Client Saves $1.4mm on Transit Funds
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has saved $1.4 million in administrative costs since launching the JP Morgan Chase “GO!card” program in March, an estimated 20-40% reduction over HHS’ former paper-based, manual program. The J.P. Morgan-issued “Green Option” Commuter Card is a preloaded Visa-branded charge card given to eligible HHS employees for the purchase of mass transit fares. HHS introduced the program to help improve the distribution and overall management of mass transit subsidies, as well as contribute to the General Service Administration’s Zero Environmental Footprint (ZEF) goals. The “GO!card” automates the agency’s labor and time-intensive manual process of issuing paper checks for transit subsidies and gives HHS employees their monthly mass transit allotments to their “GO!card” account.
SCA Conference Week Comes to Close
Smart card identity and security ID leaders at the federal, state and local levels gathered at the Smart Card Alliance 9th Annual Smart Cards in Government Conference in Washington, D.C. to share status updates and lessons learned for projects underway. Main points touched on include the emerging National Strategy for Trusted Identity in Cyberspace (NSTIC), putting Personal Identity Verification (PIV) credentials to work for physical and logical access and identity management in healthcare. The NSTIC document will be ready for President Obama’s signature this winter to take advantage of the work done on the PIV and PIV-I (PIV-Interoperable) standards, which underlie the two-factor authentication credentials already widely used by the federal government and increasingly adopted by states and commercial organizations. With more than 75 percent of federal employees and contractors now carrying a smart card-based PIV credential, the focus is shifting to putting those cards to use for physical and logical access control. Through education programs, market research, advocacy, industry relations and open forums, the Smart Card Alliance keeps its members connected to industry leaders and innovative thought.