Brussels, 10/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - Erkki Liikanen, European Commission responsible for enterprise and information society should inaugurate, on Wednesday 11 July, an event marking the adoption of specifications for protected chip card readers, which will soon be published by the European Standardisation Committee (under the reference CWA - Common Workshop Agreement - 14174). These specifications are the result of the work by the Finread consortium, which regroups the innovative European payment systems. It answers the Commission aim, developed in the eEurope action plan, to make transactions more secure in order to enhance consumer confidence.
The Finread project, started by the European financial sector, gathers together the innovative European payment systems and the manufacturers of chip card readers. The specifications relating to a protected chip card reader will mainly be used in a wide range of payment applications for electronic commerce and home banking. This solution is also susceptible of being extended to other sectors such as health services or online administrative services.
For electronic commerce to develop on a large scale, it is necessary for the population to have confidence in the tools offered. Given that electronic chips will be used in bank cards at the world level by 2005, chip cards are now recognised as one of the best ways of ensuring a secure and versatile access to electronic services.
The eEurope initiative on chip cards benefits from a wide-ranging support from economic circles and public administrations. It also regroups existing initiatives from various sectors, in order to create new synergies, to coordinate activities and avoid the unnecessary repetition of efforts. The Commission feels that, thanks to the Finread specifications, the eEurope chip card initiative reaches a result of major importance both for consumers as for the financial sector. Information on this dossier may be found at the following address: http: //europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/index_en.htm.