CommerceNet aims for smartcard standard

NEWS CommerceNet, a consortium formed to promote ecommerce, has started a smartcard interoperability test in an attempt to unify competing software standards. The group, which includes British Airways, GKN and Visa, will set up a working group to establish common practices for smartcard production and use. It predicts that by 2002, almost four billion smartcards will be in circulation, and claims it is vital that they can all operate with any reader.