New markets, new opportunities in 2018

The beginning of the year is always marked by a combination of events: we all celebrate the New Year, many analysts’ attention is focused on the CES that will happen next week, and analysts publish their predictions for the coming year.

In 2018, the secure transactions industry will have to digest its 2017 restructuring. Idemia and Gemalto staff will be busy in defending their position and their careers and less present on the markets. This will create an opportunity for all other players in the industry, that can be more reactive and more aggressive on markets.

The telecoms market will probably keep on being a bit slow due to the gradual switch from the disposable SIM to the eSIM. At the same time, 5G is coming, and after multiple experiments, pilots and limited deployments, the first commercial networks are anticipated to be deployed in 2018, if handsets are available on time….

While the standards war between Sigfox, LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, LTE-M and others will not end in 2018, IoT will be booming, and hopefully, the vendors and general public understanding of security issues will improve leading to a safer Internet of Things using solutions developed and supported by the secure transactions industry.

The financial transactions market will be impacted by huge regulatory changes, including PSD2 and Open API, that will foster the emergence of more players in the payment market and GDPR that will open new business opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The financial transactions segment is to be more innovative than ever thanks to the increasing role played by FinTech, which bring a renewed understanding of payment needs and bring innovative solutions.

At the same time, mobile payment will keep on booming in China with Alipay and WeChat taking always more space in everyone’s life and in India with the fast adoption of mobile payment, using a multiplicity of players.

In an increasingly always-connected always-on world, cybersecurity will be the place of all innovations, especially as the needs for security are always more prevalent in an increasingly complex environment including human users as well as IoT and cloud security issues. The secure transactions industry expertise in digital identity is an essential asset that, combined with artificial intelligence, will deliver new security solutions.

Government ID is growing and is penetrating more markets with better combinations between physical security features and electronics, be it on the document or in the cloud. After ePassports are present in a majority of countries, more documents, such as ID cards, driving licenses, healthcare cards, all types of permits, etc. are becoming electronic, and on the path to becoming mobile and dematerialized.

A lot of events and interesting developments are ahead of us in 2018!