World's smallest reader

[11 Oct 2005] This could change everything!

Driven by "Internet ATM" applications in Taiwan, where all credit and debit cards have switched to chip, nearly two million smartcard readers have been bought by consumers there; 500,000 of these are the "EZmini" model shown here. This is the world's smallest smartcard reader, a little wider than a USB thumb drive. They sell in Taipei for US$10 each.

So reader cost and complexity are no longer real obstacles to the wider adoption of smartcards for banking and secure government services delivery.