Smart Cards are plastic credit card sized cards that contain an embedded 8 bit microprocessor. Smart cards are portable storage technology. These cards are in wide use in Europe and have been since the 1990s, but have just recently grown in popularity in the United States.

A smart card might look like a regular credit card but on the inside it’s much different. The fact that it has an inside and is not just a flat card makes it different. The card contains the microprocessor. This microprocessor is covered with gold foil flakes. This chip replaces the magnetic strip portion of a regular credit card for information storage and sharing.

The cards are used almost universally in Europe for banking. A smart card might be used as an ATM, credit or debit card. The card can be inserted into a reader like an ATM machine much like a typical magnetic stripe credit card. But, smart cards don’t always have to make contact with a reader. A smart card can also be simply waved in front of a reader and share information using an embedded radio antenna. These types of cards are called contactless cards.

In Europe, smart cards became popular because they were used for mobile phones. Mobile phones contain a smart card called a SIM card. Some US carriers use SIM card technology as well, but it’s not universal as it almost is in Europe. These smart cards contain the subscriber’s telephone number and account number meaning a user can switch phones by simply switching out the SIM card and putting it in the new phone. A smart card in a phone isn’t as large as a credit card but only about an inch square and also made from a slightly different plastic material that looks and feels more like cardboard.

Smart cards look like plastic cards and sometimes act like a credit card, holding financial data, but do much more as well. Smart cards hold an embedded microprocessor and were invented in the 1960s, but not used until the 1980s.

In the 1990s, Europeans started using smart cards regularly for mobile phones. In a mobile phone, a smart card is called a “SIM” card. The card holds the phone number and account subscriber information. In most parts of Europe, users don’t have a contract with a phone provider but add and use minutes through the smart card in the phone.

This type of technology just recently started taking off in the United States with some users using the smart cards in mobile phones. But, other uses have come about like using the smart cards for credit cards. The advantage of a smart card is that the information is encrypted within the card and in general considered more secure than magnetic stripe credit cards.

In Europe, the cards are used as credit, debit and ATM cards as well. The cards are also used for identification as well. The card can hold information in the chip about a person like address and identification numbers.

The cards have many health care applications. In Germany, every person has a smart card for health care coverage. The cards are also used for identification in health care as employee badges. The cards can hold a lot of information and can even be used to hold health records.

Smart cards are in wide use in Europe. The use of smart cards is growing in other parts of the world, including the United States. Europeans use smart cards for identification cards, mobile phones and for banking cards. Smart cards will continue to grow in popularity because they offer a secure reliable way to share information.