NEW YORK, NY — (Marketwired) — 09/30/14 — SmartMetric, Inc. (OTCQB: SMME) Alternative payment technologies such as mobile phones using wallet based systems have a long way to go before they even come close to eclipsing plastic credit cards, let alone replacing them, says the President & CEO of SmartMetric, Inc. Chaya Hendrick today.
According to SmartMetric, the biggest problems with phones as a payment replacement to cards is phones are not as trusted as cards, even in the light of the recent high retail card fraud incidents. In surveys of customer concerns of payment security the mobile phone ranks as a far less trusted medium than credit cards. Another issue, if not even larger than overcoming the trust issue of phones as a payment device, is overcoming trained behaviour. Consumers have gotten so used to using a plastic card to make a payment that it is a well ingrained habit. It is a so well engrained habit or behaviour that changing it to another completely new and foreign method is fraught with strong consumer resistance. This has been evidenced by the failure of the adoption of NFC or contactless card payments even when most credit and debit cards had installed inside an NFC contactless chip, consumers preferred to swipe their cards rather than tap their cards in the back of taxis, etc. Added to the consumer resistance to behavioural change, as evidenced by the failed adoption of mobile wallets and NFC to date, the number of point of sale readers in stores able to read NFC/contactless devices such as phones is miniscule. According to a report in an article by Moseley Fool, “only 220,000 retail outlets nationwide are going to be equipped to accept payments using phones. That, according to Time magazine–s website, is just 2.4 percent of the country–s 7 million to 9 million merchants.” Add to this the fact that mobile phones cannot be used at ATM machines and you have not withstanding all the hype over mobile phones as a payment tool a technology that stands to remain a fringe player in the multi trillion dollar payments system.
Recognizing the dominance plastic cards have had and will continue to have as a payments tool SmartMetric devoted its research and development into making the simple plastic card safer while ensuring it works with the majority of retail readers and ATM–s across the country and around the world. By adding a fingerprint scanner inside the plastic credit or debit card,
SmartMetric has achieved adding biometric security to the ubiquitous plastic card consumers are so used to using. SmartMetric is planning on releasing its biometric payments card this quarter and has arranged mass production contract manufacturing that will provide an immediate manufacturing capacity of 250,000 biometric cards a week.
Certain of the above statements contained in this press release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are within the meaning of that term in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors.
Investor Relations
Jens Dalsgaard
EraStar, Inc.
(702) 480.9800
SmartMetric, Inc.
Chaya Hendrick
Head Office: (702) 990.3687
Direct: (786) 269.2238
Email:
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