UK’s Barclaycard is now allowing customers to pay for greater value items with their contactless credit and debit cards, bumping the limit up from £10 to £15 per purchase, according to which4u.co.uk.

Barclaycard hopes that the increased spending range will encourage more retailers to implement the technology. ▸

The Theatre Royal Stratford East has awarded SALTO Systems a contract to provide a fully integrated XS4 solution which includes access control and stand alone locks using cotactless Mifare cards.

The installation will be carried out by Delta Security, a local business partner of SALTO Systems. The XS4 system’s off-line doors will be validated by regular use of the hot-spot, on-line access control readers. ▸

Gemalto has announced that its Protiva Strong Authentication Server is now fully integrated with Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010, allowing organizations to provision, deploy and manage smart card-based one-time password (OTP) devices linked to Gemalto’s server on the familiar Microsoft interface.

Gemalto will be demonstrating the combined solution at the RSA Conference 2010 in the Microsoft Partner Pavilion, booth #1527, and at Gemalto booth #1923. ▸

Smart Card 3rd Annual Payments Summit, an event featuring the contactless payment phenomenon becoming more popular in the world’s leading banks, took place February 23rd – 25th in Salt Lake City.

The Smart Card Alliance is working to enhance a broader understanding, adoption and use of smart card technology. Participants at the February Summit covered an array of issues concerning contactless payments in transit systems, mobile payments and retailers. With EMV implementation as their primary concern, they looked at the numbers and considered future plans for expansion. ▸

HID Global announced that it will promote its vision and advancements in risk management technologies at the 2010 RSA Conference in San Francisco. HID Global’s solutions combine physical and logical security to deliver data security through a single smart card for organizations seeking advanced yet convenient security solutions.

HID Global will demonstrate a variety of solutions based around its HID on the Desktop solutions, including Crescendo cards, OMNIKEY readers and naviGO software, at the HID Global booth 2317, in the Moscone Center. ▸

Dumfries and Galloway, the southernmost council area of Scotland, is adopting sQuid’s contactless eMoney technology for its National Entitlement Card (NEC).

Dumfries and Galloway citizens with NECs can now have sQuid eMoney added to their cards, enabling them to pay for small value items from a pre-loaded electronic purse. ▸

A report by The Ponemon Institute on behalf of Thales, released information regarding the Qualified Security Assessors’ recommendations and costs for the information and communication security industry.

The report titled, PCI DSS Trends 2010 – QSA Insights, found that 41% of businesses would fail compliance audits if unable to rely on temporary compensating controls to meet Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requirements. ▸