21 million personal card readers delivered in Europe

Xiring announces the 2009 market figures for strong authentication solutions. In total 21 million bank card based strong authentication solutions have been delivered in Europe to replace the static password for online banking services and to secure e-commerce payments.

The 2008 consolidated year-end figures for Europe (including Switzerland and Turkey) show the number of solutions delivered over twelve months has doubled; proving the relevance of the solutions for replacing static passwords, especially to secure online banking transactions.

With around 21 million solutions distributed by the 2008 year-end, personal card based strong authentication is the most deployed solution in Europe after the static password for securing online banking.

In regards to the deployment of these personal strong authentication solutions, the North of Europe is in the lead with about 15 million users equipped in Scandinavia, Benelux and the UK, half of the 2010 forecast (31 million). In the UK it is estimated that more than 7 million Britons were equipped over 18 months, thus validating Xiring’s estimate to 15.7 million users in the UK and Ireland by the end of 2010.

2008 also saw new countries opening up to bank card based strong authentication solutions including France and Italy.

In this geography, it is estimated that 60 million users will be equipped at the end of 2010, with significant volumes in France (10 million).

With bank smart cards issued to more than 100 million Europeans, these strong authentication solutions are also allowing e-commerce payments to be secured. The changing banking regulations, the introduction of EMV smart cards and “Verified by VISA” and “MasterCard SecureCode” e-commerce secure payments naturally lead to the use of the same solution to secure both online banking and e-commerce payments.