Contactless technology has been used for many years for payment in public transport or toll applications.

The latest technological development is contactless usage for retail payment applications.

Since their origin, some Calypso cards integrated an electronic purse. In France, the national e-purse scheme named Moneo is developed by BMS, and includes a contactless smartcard developed in collaboration with Calypso.

Several contactless payment systems have been successfully launched recently. In Asia, the contactless technology is in rapid expansion, initiated by public transport applications.

In North America, the contactless technology has also made significant progress. In July 2003, American Express announced the extension of its pilot Express Pay to 30,000 holders by the end of the year 2003. Express Pay is a contactless payment retail system that uses a device – not a card – compliant with the ISO 14443 standard.

Mastercard announced in December 2002 a payment system using contactless payment devices in Orlando, Florida.