ICICI Prudential Life, in yet another innovative way to market their products and services has launched the biometric smart cards in the rural areas. The smart cards will store the policy details and enable the policy holder a hassle free way of maintaining his policy related activites.
Some of the features are as below:
Anita Pai, executive vice president, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance said, "As the company is expanding and reaching out to policyholders across the nation, it is critical for us to maintain our service experience amongst customers. The card will enable us to move away from the connectivity and infrastructure barriers and provide real time solutions to policyholders in the rural segment."
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has launched this unique service in partnership with Financial Information Networks Operation (FINO) and policyholders can utilise this service at various FINO Fintech access points created across India’s rural areas. The biometric smart cards will be issued at no extra cost to the customer. The first set of the biometric smart cards will be handed to over ICICI Prudential Life policyholders in in Mahbubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh.
ICICI Prudential has 700 branches in 500 locations. "We are looking at setting up 500 FINO points across the country in next 7 to 8 points," said Pai.
Smart Cards Usage
A `smart card' is a plastic card with an IC (integrated) chip capable of storing and processing data stored in it. It is like a computer in your wallet. Smart cards have many applications, for example,
in Telecommunications (SIM/Payphone cards), Transport segment (Vehicle registration, Driving licences), in Banking, Healthcare, Iinsurance, E-governance, besides physical and logical access control.
Depending upon the application and information storage capacity required, smart cards, besides having a microprocessor (in most cases) chip for secure information storage and processing, come with optional magnetic strips, bar codes, optical strips, holograms, etc, on a variety of card bodies
To use a smart card, either to get information from it or store data in it, you need a smart card reader, a small device into which you insert the smart card.
The first smart card was developed in 1974, by independent inventor Roland Moreno. Axalto (A Schlumberger Company) delivered the world's first commercial application of smart cards in 1980. These were pre-paid memory smart cards and smart card payphones.
The prime mover for smart card usage was to curb fraud, and technology has effectively contributed to this end. After public telephony, the banking industry followed the usage of smart card technology, which incorporated microprocessor-based smart card technology. The early 1990s again saw the telecom industry adopting smart cards in a big way and this time GSM was globally standardised on smart cards as SIM cards.
The mid-1990s saw the advent of Open Platform cards. The Java cards invented in 1996 gave a boost for multi-application cards. Technology and market requirements later adopted usage of complex cryptography in smart cards making them a favourite user media to store, carry and transact with digital signatures.
Applications based on contact-less technology and the invention of combi cards (contact + contactless) in 1996-97 opened up a whole new segment in smart technology. The invention of .NET technology in 2002 saw the memory capacity of smart cards growing further.
With the increasing need for security, smart cards are being viewed as the ideal medium for implementing national ID/citizen ID cards globally. Identification and e-Governance are seen as the largest consumers of smart card technology in the near future. In the transport sector, smart card-based driving licences, vehicle registration, mass transit and toll applications are expected to form yet another large segment of smart card usage. GSM SIM cards and wireless telephony applications are also expected to receive a boost as wireless technologies gain momentum.
Some of the features are as below:
- Carry all policy details without any papers
- Store transaction details
- Pay renewal premiums and service transactions (service to be launched)
- Help customers during the time of claim
Anita Pai, executive vice president, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance said, "As the company is expanding and reaching out to policyholders across the nation, it is critical for us to maintain our service experience amongst customers. The card will enable us to move away from the connectivity and infrastructure barriers and provide real time solutions to policyholders in the rural segment."ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has launched this unique service in partnership with Financial Information Networks Operation (FINO) and policyholders can utilise this service at various FINO Fintech access points created across India’s rural areas. The biometric smart cards will be issued at no extra cost to the customer. The first set of the biometric smart cards will be handed to over ICICI Prudential Life policyholders in in Mahbubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh.
ICICI Prudential has 700 branches in 500 locations. "We are looking at setting up 500 FINO points across the country in next 7 to 8 points," said Pai.
Smart Cards Usage
A `smart card' is a plastic card with an IC (integrated) chip capable of storing and processing data stored in it. It is like a computer in your wallet. Smart cards have many applications, for example,
in Telecommunications (SIM/Payphone cards), Transport segment (Vehicle registration, Driving licences), in Banking, Healthcare, Iinsurance, E-governance, besides physical and logical access control.Depending upon the application and information storage capacity required, smart cards, besides having a microprocessor (in most cases) chip for secure information storage and processing, come with optional magnetic strips, bar codes, optical strips, holograms, etc, on a variety of card bodies
To use a smart card, either to get information from it or store data in it, you need a smart card reader, a small device into which you insert the smart card.
The first smart card was developed in 1974, by independent inventor Roland Moreno. Axalto (A Schlumberger Company) delivered the world's first commercial application of smart cards in 1980. These were pre-paid memory smart cards and smart card payphones.
The prime mover for smart card usage was to curb fraud, and technology has effectively contributed to this end. After public telephony, the banking industry followed the usage of smart card technology, which incorporated microprocessor-based smart card technology. The early 1990s again saw the telecom industry adopting smart cards in a big way and this time GSM was globally standardised on smart cards as SIM cards.
The mid-1990s saw the advent of Open Platform cards. The Java cards invented in 1996 gave a boost for multi-application cards. Technology and market requirements later adopted usage of complex cryptography in smart cards making them a favourite user media to store, carry and transact with digital signatures.
Applications based on contact-less technology and the invention of combi cards (contact + contactless) in 1996-97 opened up a whole new segment in smart technology. The invention of .NET technology in 2002 saw the memory capacity of smart cards growing further.
With the increasing need for security, smart cards are being viewed as the ideal medium for implementing national ID/citizen ID cards globally. Identification and e-Governance are seen as the largest consumers of smart card technology in the near future. In the transport sector, smart card-based driving licences, vehicle registration, mass transit and toll applications are expected to form yet another large segment of smart card usage. GSM SIM cards and wireless telephony applications are also expected to receive a boost as wireless technologies gain momentum.
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