New consumer appliances such as PDA, Set Top Box, GSM/UMTS terminals enable an easy access to the internet and strongly contribute to the development of e-commerce and m-commerce services. Tens of billion payments are made using cards today, and this is expected to grow in a near future. Smartcard platforms will enable operators and service providers to design and deploy new e- and m-commerce services. This development can only be achieved if a high level of security is guaranteed for the transactions and the customer?s information.

In this context, smartcard design is very challenging in order to provide the flexibility and the powerfulness required by the applications and services, while at the same time guaranteeing the security of the transactions and the customer?s privacy. The goal of the session is to introduce this context and highlights the main challenges the smartcard designers/manufacturers have to face.