Cards Australia Conference/Exhibition 2005

August 17-18, 2005
by Warwick Bone.

The Cards Australia 2005 exhibition/conference was again held in Darling Harbour, Sydney, and little wonder why - central, picturesque, and just a delight to visit.

The exhibition and conference was also a two day affair this year, further indication that even though Australia may be a big country, it is a small marketplace in the general scheme of things.

• Exhibition

It was also interesting to note that whilst the exhibition was co-located with the RFID exhibition, as it has been before and a good mix from a technology point of view, the conference steered further away from the technical aspects of the cards industry and ventured deeper into the issues and problems facing the financial use of cards, from banking through to retail and loyalty, but more of that later,

The exhibition space was the same as last year, and populated at around the same rate as well, although there was again a reduction in the number of major card vendors present. In fact, none of the major players exhibited leaving the floor open for local suppliers. This has been a trend over the years and again I have to wonder at the needs of the market versus the "known factor" within the market. I mentioned at last year's exhibition about one vendor who remarked "I know all my customers, I am here again for appearance." Given that the novelty fact has worn off long ago, what Australian users of the technology need now is solutions to specific problems or applications, which is where the local suppliers come in. Large projects are the realm of the larger facilitators or consortium, where everyone knows everyone else. Smaller projects though ...

And the same is true for manufacturers and suppliers of peripherals and ancillary equipment where there is still a large opportunity to offers solutions and products more suited to smaller installations.

• Conference

The conference could roughly be divided into three main topics; Card Transaction Regulations, Fraud & Security, and Loyalty.

The changes in regulations and how they would affect card transactions was of course of great interest to the banks and card issuers as these changes affect their business models. Reformation within the payments industry was a hotly debated topic, particularly the change in interchange fees and how that would affect the bottom line.

But of course, not all see it that way. There was also the Merchants point of view represented with questions being asked about equality of acceptance across all card types and how the extra charges from some card types eat into the bottom line of SMEs. Of particular target was the Visa Debit card which attracts higher fees than a credit card from being classed as a different financial instrument. Of course, to the consumer this is of little interest or relevance as they are not footing those extra costs - or should they? The question was raised about informing the consumer of those additional costs and asking the consumer to cover them as part of the transaction.  There was mixed response as to effectiveness of this idea from both consumer relations and business angles, with no real consensus reached. It is a challenge for smaller companies though, one which needs a solution.

Fraud and Security was a hot topic, continuing from last year's discussion, with the main presentations coming from Oman and Hong Kong.

Spt Rose Cheuk spoke of the role the Commercial Crime Bureau was playing in preventing credit card fraud in Hong Kong, in particular, how the Bureau has been liaising with other similar organisations abroad to thwart cross border fraud attempts.

Mr  Amit Desai, of the Oman International Bank then followed with some specific examples of attempts to capture user's card data at Omani ATMs, detailing the technology and techniques used and how they were thwarted.

The Loyalty section focused on creating card avenues to encourage new and/or continued usage in both the business and consumer sectors. Presentations included Vipin Kalra on Visa's marketing of using the Visa Card for small business expenses and purchasing,  Sandra O'Kelly on Onecard's win/win case for both the consumer and the retailer, and again  Amit Desai of Oman International Bank on tapping into the Youth market by tailoring a card that would be acceptable to both the teen and the parent.

In summary, again Terrapinn has organised an excellent conference/exhibition for the Australian market. When I asked  James Jancu, Conference Director, specifically about focusing the discussions towards the financial sector, he responded "We asked people what they wanted, as we gave it to them."