VISA is to boost its support for the development of SMART card technology by forming a consortium to be called GlobalPlatform that will bring together those with an interest in the technology and its applications. Microsoft and Sun are already signed up.

Co-operation is the key and VISA says the group will work to standardise back-office smart card procedures that have applications from various industries on a single card.

As part of the effort VISA will make its Open Platform chip card program freely available, and GlobalPlatform will manage and modify the program. Microsoft will offer GlobalPlatform its Smart Card for Windows operating platform as an alternative to Sun's Java Card.