INSIDE Contactless Extends MicroPass Platform for Use in Visa Mini Cards

INSIDE Contactless today announced an extension of its MicroPass™ contactless platform, with new support for the Visa Contactless Mini Card. By working jointly with Visa USA, INSIDE’s MicroPass™ has achieved full compliance with Visa’s requirements for security, performance, and functionality of Visa Contactless.

MicroPass™ is INSIDE’s next-generation 16-bit RISC microprocessor, designed specifically to meet the unique challenges of short-range contactless communications. MicroPass’s minimal power consumption provides a critical benefit for contactless applications, which do not have a dedicated power source. Coupled with fast transaction processing – typically around 150 m/sec for a contactless transaction – MicroPass-enabled cards provide a consistent consumer experience for either credit or debit transactions.

The Visa Contactless Mini Card is approximately half the size of a regular credit or debit card and easy to carry on a key ring. Adding the contactless features to the Visa Mini Cards provides even greater convenience, enabling cardholders to complete transactions by simply holding the card in front of a contactless reader.

“The speed and convenience of contactless payments absolutely applies to alternative form factors like the Visa Contactless Mini Card,” said Brian Triplett, Senior Vice President of Emerging Product Development at Visa USA. “At half the size of a standard Visa card, the Visa Contactless Mini Card offers more payment choices to cardholders and supports the momentum for contactless payments in the U.S.”

“We’ve developed MicroPass to achieve maximum value for Visa members and our card manufacturer partners within the U.S. payments market,” said INSIDE’s Vice President of the Payment Product Line, Bernard Vian. “We’re ready to support our customers in large-scale commercial deployments with the Visa Mini Card and an array of other form-factors based upon the MicroPass platform.”

The MicroPass™ platform is available today to Visa USA member financial institutions in the Visa Contactless Mini Card form-factor through Giesecke & Devrient. Today’s announcement of the Visa Contactless Mini Card extension to the MicroPass product suite adds to the variety of MicroPass-powered form factors that are currently available.

“The G&D Contactless Card Product Suite, including the Visa Contactless Mini Card, delivers enhanced performance, durability and quality. Working with INSIDE has allowed us to bring this technology to the marketplace in a timely manner and with superior quality,” commented Christian Juettner, Senior Vice President of Cards and New Business for Giesecke & Devrient in North America.