Dematerialization comes but hardware is here to last

Among the keywords heard this week in two different trade shows, SDW (Secure Document World) and Money 20/20, dematerialization comes first, hands down. As an example in dematerialization, this week we announce our most recent Smart Insights Report “Physical, Digital, Mobile unite for future Government Identity” that tackles the evolution from physical identity documents towards mobile identity.

Just ten years after the inception of the smart phone, we are all willing to use it universally. While no one has any certainty we will still be using smartphones ten years from now, we expect to use them to dematerialize both our identity and our payments.

However, in both cases, the consensus is that smartphones can be a good option as the industry has worked to make them more secure over years, but they may not yet be the ultimate solution. We can now take for granted that smartphones provide a reliable and fully industrialized biometrics tool. Smartphones cameras are used to get users selfies and to authenticate them, while many smartphones are equipped with fingerprint sensors. At the same time, more applications are developed that use the voice as an authentication means. In addition, we have secure elements at our disposal in all smartphones thanks to SIM cards and mobile connect standards.

These security technologies and the combination of the evolution of government ID and payment lead new usages for smartphones. If they are not yet everyone’s payment means on the planet, they are used in many cases as an authentication means at enrolment stage, or to provide a second factor when we complete secure identity or payment transactions.

At Smart Insights, we have a long history of publishing market research in addition to our weekly newsletter. In our market research, we explore how new technologies will change the current situation where smart card technologies are used for many applications. Interestingly, after questioning many experts in the industry, after running our methodology to establish market forecasts, our conclusion in all segments is consistent. Over the latest Smart Insights Reports, we explored healthcare cards, SIM cards, transportation tickets and cards, payment cards, and now government IDs, and our conclusions are converging.

Yes new dematerialized and mobile-based technologies will happen! But they will not happen overnight and our secure transactions industry still has a bright future!