Brussels, 21/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - With an increase of 20% in the number of cards issued in 2005, the European smartcard industry is booming and forecasts for 2006 suggest a similar level of performance, according to figures released on Thursday by the Smartcard Association, representing 35 smartcard companies in the European Union. Over ten years, some 15 billion smartcards, 80% of them from European companies, have been issued around the world, with the highest number, 2.6 billion, being issued last year. Olivier Piou, President of Axalto and Smartcard, said consolidation of the sector, the growth of contactless payments in the United States and the growth of machine-readable passports almost everywhere were signs of maturity. Piou was speaking on Thursday at a press conference in Brussels. Outlining perspectives for 2006, Jacques Seneca, due to take over from Piou as President of Eurosmart, said he expected the 3 billion mark to be broken in 2006. Even though the strong competition is expected to lead to falling prices, huge jumps in volume are forecast in the medical industry and electronic ID cards (+42%), transport (+25%), financial services (+20%) and telecoms (+18.7%). In the future, Eurosmart hopes to improve convergence and interoperability of electronic ID on all public and private networks connected with e-government, and to boost the security of transactions. More detailed regulations on the levels of security to be provided would be useful, it feels, regretting the current legal vacuum and absence of real guarantees of secure payment on the internet.