Business and innovation at the heart of CARTES & IDentification 2011 trade show

FRANCE: With almost 20,000 visitors, CARTES & IDentification 2011 confirmed its international influence and positioned itself as the major global event for digital security and smart technologies.

With a rising number of visitors (19,513 visitors in total against 18,768 visitors in 2010), this edition has once again been able to meet the high expectations of this industry. Building on this success the organizing committee announced the dates of the next edition: 6 to 8 November 2012 in Paris Nord Villepinte with India being the country of honour at Cartes & IDentification 2012.

CARTES & IDentification was in fine form, positioning itself more than ever as the sector's key global event. From the Conference to the SESAMES Awards and the high numbers at the stands, the event combined innovations and dynamism.

Reflection of a dynamic market
The trade show confirms its international status with 430 exhibitors from 45 countries, and 19,513 visitors, with 69 percent visitors representing 143 countries. The 21 conferences tracks during the three days welcomed 1,225 participants, including 87 percent professionals from outside France.

Key industry issues were discussed at length, in particular during the conferences dedicated to mobile payment and financial services (NFC and contactless), the future of payments, security in a “cloud” ecosystem, multi-application, point of sales/point of interaction and e-government, which were a great success.

As every year, the high point of the Congress was the inaugural conference of the "World Card Summit", during which key leaders from the industry analysed major market trends and presented their strategic visions in front of a full house of 500 people. For the first time in Europe, Scott Mulloy the CTO of ISIS (joint-venture with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless) presented their mobile payment vision during a keynote. Eurosmart also presented a preview of the 2011 figures and forecasts of the global market, announcing an expected 13 percent growth in 2012 and 7 billion units for secure smart devices.

Mobile payment and NFC applications
Visitors are aware of the deployment of contactless technology and the arrival of NFC terminals for mobile payment, with many demonstrations on the stands such as the NFC car by Oberthur or the e-bike by NXP. The pavilion dedicated to mobile payment companies hosted 12 solutions providers for mobile payment, transactions management, Trusted Service Management, smartphones, tablets and other smarts mobiles objects.

Many projects in government security and E-health
The identity protection sector is booming and the technologies of identification and authentication presented by the exhibitors have been applied to many documents (biometrics passports, electronic ID, electronic driver’s license, health cards).

E-health has been in the spotlight this year with the Smart Health exhibition which presented innovations for electronic health record, health cards, or even applications for telemedicine that improve the quality of care services and patients comfort, but it also fights against fraud and inflation in health costs.

SESAMES Awards
The winners of the 2011 SESAMES awards were revealed in front of a privileged audience of 300 guests during a superb ceremony organised at the Automobile Club de France. Here is the list of this year winners:

- BEST HARDWARE: DYNAMICS with Chips & Choice
- BEST SOFTWARE: NXP SEMICONDUCTORS with Open source NFC Host Software stack for Android
- BEST IT SECURITY APPLICATION: GEMALTO with Just4YourEyes
- BEST TRANSPORTATION APPLICATION: INSIDE SECURE with VHBR
- BEST BANKING/RETAIL/LOYALTY APPLICATION: SIMARTIS TELECOM with Bubble
- BEST SECURE INTERNET/AUTHENTICATION APPLICATION: HID GLOBAL with Next Generation Secure Identity Ecosystem
- BEST MOBILITY APPLICATION: NXP SEMICONDUCTORS with PN65 Secure NFC module
- BEST eTRANSACTIONS APPLICATION: VERIFONE with PAYware Mobile Enterprise
- BEST MANUFACTURING & TESTS APPLICATION: OBERTHUR TECHNOLOGIES with ID One Digital watermark.