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Smart Technology Solutions Limited (STS), an innovator in smart card solutions, today announces its partnership with Tailwind Solutions to provide a cost effective and seamless contactless payment technology.

Recently at a hotel car park in the Midlands I was queuing to pay at a self-service machine. Bewildered of Birmingham was in front. They'd put in their card and were waiting for the usual PIN prompt, but nothing was happening. Or so they thought. The machine was actually waiting to be told that a card had been put in!

If, like me, you attended the recent Retail Solutions event in London you would have seen stands promoting contactless payments. I've reviewed this technology in its own right in previous newsletters and highlighting the benefits: speed of payment, zero cash handling costs for the merchant, convenience for the consumer, blah, blah.

When STS delivered its award winning Emvelink and SmartNS solution to retailers, it offered not only the ability to perform chip and PIN transactions but also the flexibility of adding new smart card applications or using these new PIN pads for other applications.

STS announces that it has developed the software to provide chip and PIN functionality for the new ITWell Mobile Point of Sale terminal, the XPDA-V. Through this work, the ITWell XPDA-V POS will be available for use as an EMV Level 2 enabled mobile point of sale.

STS has always been at the forefront of the EMV wave in the UK and is now embracing some of the 'younger technologies' such as contactless that are emerging. But, if you cast your eye beyond the British shores at the moment you can see the same wave of EMV activity that the UK saw in 2005 / 2006 happening elsewhere.

The move to EMV in the APAC region is really starting to gather momentum with countries like New Zealand in the process of migration and Australia set to switch over in the next 1-2 years. With this in mind STS have partnered with Australian-based consulting and solutions company, Smarta Technology.