We live in a world where technology and advancement are making life easier. Making payments and shopping online across several platforms has never been so easy and convenient. Smart card technology has made payments and carrying out online transactions easier for everyone.
Today, smart cards are common in every economy across the world. They are used by almost everyone that receives a paycheck. The main purpose of the smart card is to reduce the old manner in which people carry money about and feel insure owing to prying eyes as well as several cases of heists connected with moving large chunks of cash about.
In general, smart cards provide a safer and secure means to conduct financial transactions while making life easier. These cards are known as smart cards for a reason, and that is what you are going to read below:
Overview: Smart Card
Smart card technology includes making a small rectangular piece of card. They are small enough to fit in your wallet or back pockets. There are a number of institutions right from banks, companies, business enterprises to many more that use smart cards for different reasons. These cards come in different sizes, but all of them share one thing in common – the technology that drives them.
Smart technology allows users to store specific information unique to them that they can use to make payments and other transaction. There is no need to carry physical cash.
Why are they known as smart cards?
They are known as smart cards because they are not just cards. They are cards that bear a substantial amount of private details and data limited to a particular user – the owner of the card. They have memory chips that are microprocessors with the capacity to store a lot of information about the users. They can be utilized to carry out online financial transactions, including shopping cashless, making payments such as electric bills, and transferring funds to a second party.
With microprocessors, they are called smart cards because they are capable of storing information and making use of them as the situation demands.
How are these cards constructed?
The construction of these cards entails four steps, including designing, fabrication, coding, and data loading.
Designing
This step includes the designer or programmer to allocate a memory size to the chip, specify the speed of the clock, the volatile types of memory and the operating system. It needs the designer to create an application software for the card and specify the card type and other features it might want to include in the card.
Fabrication
It is made of silicon that is being fixed into the card at the second stage. It is being linked to connectors to connect wires either by soldering them or by bonding them together.
Coding
It is an essential step in which the foundation for the functionality of the card is laid. Here, the codes are being entered into the chip memory using special commands.
Data loading
It is the stage in which the intended user’s persona details are being loaded into the memory chip.
In general, there are three types of smart cards, including contact smart card, contactless smart card, and hybrid smart cards. The main highlight of the smart card technology is security. With the help of these cards, users can store personal details like bank records, students identify to access libraries, company ID cards to gain access via computerized security checkpoints, and more. Thanks to technology, smart cards have come to stay and play a significant role in an individual’s life.
