GFG GROUP - NEWS ARCHIVES - 2006
User Forum showcases mobile payment strategy
08 November 2006
Convergence was one of the central themes of the GFG:UniCARD User Forum held in Melbourne, with attending banks showing strong interest in alternative payment channels such as mobile.
With Visa and MasterCard transactions increasingly being served via non traditional channels, banks are keen to extend alternative payment channels - such as mobile - that enable them to retain ownership of the customer relationship and supersede the requirement for internet access.
The User Forum also charted GFG's design and development philosophy, which is now firmly focused on rapid response to market and customer change. The new Java roadmap is an integral part of this, re-architecting GFG:UniCARD to enable quicker speed-to-market for product changes.
Discrete components of GFG:UniCARD are now also easier to change thanks to Java. Customers who want to introduce new web devices - for example - or enable merchants to access their own data, are finding it much faster and easier to achieve.
To leverage these development opportunities, GFG has placed customers at the forefront of design change. GFG's new development model works even more closely with users to understand what new functionality they require. Users are currently driving a redevelopment of GFG:UniCARD's Merchant Module, adding features such as the ability to have an unlimited number of currencies and an unlimited number of hierarchies for merchants.
German-based Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) - the largest supplier of microprocessor cards in Australia - presented the latest developments in highly secure chip cards. G&D is currently working with Nokia to put chip cards into Nokia phones. Contactless payments - via devices such as key fobs that are held near a device and read wirelessly - are also in the ascendancy, with U.S merchant acceptance in particular growing very strongly.
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