Mondex USA, the subsidiary of the electronic cash technology controlled by MasterCard International Inc, that has had some luke-warm trials of its stored value smart card systems ongoing in the US for about a year, has launched ReadiMondex, a set of software components for developers to produce Mondex applications to run on Win32 platforms. The software comprises three functions: payments, uploads and downloads of stored value, and management of that stored value. The software also enables card- to-card transactions over the internet, which with the ability to lend people money over the net, was supposed to be one of the attractions of Mondex. The idea is that retail and financial services software developers take the Mondex ActiveX components and integrate them into existing systems and ones they are developing now, so they will be able to handle payments made using Mondex smart cards. The software developer’s kit will be available to early adopters in June – none of whom Mondex is prepared to name – and Mondex USA will have its own retail version of the software available some time early next year. After that it plans to release version for card issuers, acquirers and processors. Mondex says the software moves the ‘intelligence’ of the operation from the front end to the back-end servers, which it says means retailers do not have to buy expensive specialist terminals, just any terminal that is capable of running Win32 applications.
