Shopkeepers in the UK have threatened to stop the smartcard bandwagon from rolling through the UK next year. Irate members of the British Retail Consortium have told the financial institutions behind the smartcards that its members will not be involved in the rollout until all issues of concern have been addressed. The introduction of chip cards will be a costly exercise and the financial implications and benefits to retails and their customers have still to be addressed, said the BRC. The shopkeepers estimate that the cost of upgrading their systems to handle the new smartcards will be at least 100m pounds. Smaller retailers, in particular, are outraged that they will face huge extra investment to benefit ‘fat cat’ financial institutions at a time when they are already spending heavily for year 2000 compliance and preparation for the euro. Meanwhile, one organization that will benefit from the switch to smartcard technology, NCR Corp, announced a 14m pound deal to upgrade its automatic teller machines ATM so they can read the data in a smartcard’s chip. NCR claims that its ATMs account for more than 80% of the UK’s 22,000 terminals and the deal makes Britain a world leader in smartcard compatibility.
