EUROSMART 10th anniversary - 20 April 2005

Eurosmart will celebrate its 10th anniversary by organising an important event on 20 April 2005 at the Bibliothèque Solvay in Brussels, in the presence of Mrs Viviane Reding Commissioner for Information Society and Media.

This event aims at gathering members of the Association, European policy makers and representatives of different organisations in order to strengthen the visibility of smart card professionals.


A dinner/debate will be the opportunity to exchange with European decision makers on current and future challenges on security, the protection of privacy, the offer of new services, and to make them fully understand the assets of smart card technology for many applications and the importance of the smart card industry on European and international markets.

EUROSMART will head the first meeting of the FPEG Sub-Group on Security Evaluation and Certification on 6 April 2005 with DG Internal Market (EU Commission).

In 2001, the European Commission has launched an Action Plan designed to combat the growing problem of fraud and counterfeiting on cards and other non-cash means of payment. The Fraud Prevention Expert Group of the European Commission was launched on that date and is meeting twice a year since then.

A new action plan has been adopted in October 2004 by the Commission services for the period 2004-2007. The meeting organised on 1 December 2004 was to organise the implementation of this new action plan.

The FPEG S&C sub-group (created in December 2004 under the initiative of Eurosmart) monitors the implementation of methods adopted by issuers and products vendors for the evaluation and the certification of their products and services in order to strengthen payment cards and systems security. It keeps abreast of the principles adopted with regard to security evaluation and certification methods standardization as well as of the main developments in this area.

Participants: Member States representatives, consumer associations (BEUC + national associations), European Payment Council, National Central Banks, National Payment Systems, Visa Europe, MasterCard, Certification Bodies, Eurosmart.

EUROSMART members are taking all security issues very seriously and they are working continuously to design and manufacture products to the "state of the art" security level. Appropriate actions and methodologies are developed to anticipate future attacks.

Eurosmart work is publicly available and presented to the main market actors, including survey on security evaluation methods, Protection Profile surveys, list of certified products.

Available in Documents Section

Download our presentation on our security comitment

EUROSMART Security experts have undertaken a survey on Security evaluation procedures. The industry wishes to adopt a coherent approach towards smart cards and ICs certification. The multiplication of security evaluation schemes in the payment sector does not contribute to improve the security of products. The industry asks banking organisations to consider the best evaluation method for their payment cards. Eurosmart members recommend agreeing on accepting a global scheme that fully covers and includes all expectations while addressing the largest scope of security requirements.

Eurosmart recommends that a product already certified against a methodology widely covering all aspects of security like the Common Criteria be accepted by all concerned institutions and associations, particularly those in the banking area.

Download Survey