The Difficult Game in the Promotion of Financial IC Cards
Release time:2018-04-10 09:54:35
The Difficult Game in the Promotion of Financial IC Cards
In 2012, commercial banks that obtained the qualification to issue IC cards, under the supervision of the People's Bank of China, vigorously carried out the migration work of replacing magnetic stripe cards with IC cards. At the same time, the social security card also needs to load financial functions. In this way, before 2015, the number of financial IC cards issued each year will be in the billions, and the number will continue to increase.
Such a large issuance volume will create unprecedented development opportunities for a vast industrial chain. This includes IC card production, upgrade of card reading and writing equipment, software and hardware transformation of banking application systems, development of various industry applications related to IC cards (such as IC applications in hospitals, buses, temples, etc.), system integration services, and so on.
The People's Bank of China has conducted a budget, and commercial banks need over 50 billion yuan in start-up funds for IC card migration, including fees for upgrading the acceptance environment, card replacement, and upgrading application software; In the future, to enter the application field of a certain industry, it is necessary to pay for the upgrading and transformation of the card environment in that industry, and in addition, large-scale card replacement in the future. If we calculate the investment in the next few years, we will need to invest four to five hundred billion yuan.
The informationization level of the financial industry is very high, which will drive the informationization of various industries and urban informationization transformation in the banking industry. And it provides huge business opportunities for the entire industry chain.
It seems that the People's Bank of China has led various commercial banks to do a great deed that benefits the country, the people, and the industry, and has invested huge amounts of money in this matter. But there are still people from all walks of life who are not satisfied with them, or have given them suggestions, hoping that they can adopt them. The game process involves many details that are not known to outsiders.
In April 2011, 8 academicians (5 scientific academicians and 3 engineering academicians) wrote letters to the State Council, and in June, 43 engineering academicians wrote letters to the State Council, expressing three major demands for China's financial IC card migration to drive industrial development: firstly, they hope that commercial banks can purchase domestically produced chips; 2、 Hope to use domestic cryptographic algorithms; 3、 I hope that our country can establish a complete financial IC card detection and authentication system like developed countries. The spearhead is directed towards the People's Bank of China and various commercial banks.
Are domestic chips used?
As for chip procurement, Ni Guangnan, an academician of the CAE Member, believes that there is no big gap between China and its foreign counterparts in terms of the design technology of financial IC card chips. Moreover, the relevant units in China have their own innovations, such as the high security reconfigurable logic chips. Since financial IC cards require extremely high security, it is necessary to use independently controllable chips to ensure security, which provides great development space for domestic chips. At present, in terms of chip industrialization, domestic chips still lag behind foreign chips, but this can only be solved through application promotion. Compared with the development of second-generation ID cards in China back then, the design level of domestic chips was still significantly lagging behind that of foreign countries, but now, the situation is much better than then. If we comprehensively evaluate the level of domestic and foreign chips now, it should be said that domestic chips are superior to foreign chips in terms of safety, economy, etc., and the gap in industrialization is not significant. In addition, today China's integrated circuit manufacturers are fully capable of independently manufacturing such chips. So overall, the conditions for using domestically produced financial IC card chips are mature. “ It is not a problem to use domestically produced chips for social security cards, as they are issued by national departments, just like ID cards; The current issue is the financial IC cards of banks, which may be issued by commercial banks themselves. ” Ni Guangnan added.
The attitude of the relevant person in charge of the People's Bank of China towards this issue is very clear; As long as domestic IC cards can meet the application requirements of the financial industry, banks will definitely adopt them. This is similar to when banks purchased Cisco routers. In the future, Huawei's products will keep up and we will use Huawei's. The People's Bank of China and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology negotiated in 2011 to set the time for large-scale issuance of bank cards at 2013, which allowed time for research and mass production in the domestic chip industry. Taking a step back, banks need to update their equipment generation by generation. Some domestic chip companies have not been able to prepare their technology in the near future, so there is still a chance for the next generation. ”
Is the national secret algorithm used?
Ni Guangnan believes that:; The existing financial IC card standards in our country will continue to develop and improve with the development of demand. There are also some solutions for how to be compatible with existing international standards, as chip and software technology are already very advanced, and solving these problems will not increase the cost much. For example, issues such as dual interface and compatibility with international password algorithms are not difficult to solve. In order to ensure the financial security of our country, the use of domestically produced chips and cryptographic algorithms cannot be shaken. Under this premise, other compatibility requirements can be economically solved through appropriate technological means. ”
Regarding the issue of using cryptographic algorithms, the person in charge of the People's Bank of China stated that the introduction of the national encryption algorithm involves issues with international interconnectivity, the serious shortage of high-end software around this algorithm in China, authentication systems, chip performance and processing capabilities, and so on. Many issues are intertwined and very complex, and adopting national encryption algorithms is not an easy task.
Construction of China Financial IC Card Security Testing Center
Given the importance of financial IC cards, Academician Ni Guangnan and others proposed that it is necessary to establish a specialized testing and certification system and corresponding institutions under the guidance of relevant national departments to ensure that China's financial IC cards truly comply with relevant national standards. This testing and certification will be objective, scientific, and fair, and will not exclude foreign manufacturers.
The proposal of the academician has received attention from the State Council, and the National Development and Reform Commission has taken the lead and provided special funding support to establish a testing and certification system. Upgrade the Bank Card Testing Center of the People's Bank of China and rename it as the National Financial IC Card Security Testing Center. According to the plan, in 2013, this testing center will be upgraded and able to complete 31 IC card chip testing projects. The phased goal is to complete 20 testing projects by 2012.
In terms of IC card applications, there is still a gap between the capabilities of the industry and the needs of commercial banks. The industry has been working hard, but the biggest problem is insufficient funding. For example, a major gap between domestically produced chips and mature foreign chips at the current stage is the issue of packaging. The IC card has an antenna, and the chip and antenna need to be soldered together for packaging. There are automatic packaging equipment abroad, but in China it is manually packaged. Manual packaging can lead to a high rate of defective products. But to introduce foreign equipment, which is expensive, domestic manufacturers dare not invest. They must see that the market can scale up and see the return on investment before they can invest. However, opportunities do not wait for anyone. Both the People's Bank of China and commercial banks cannot wait indefinitely. The increasingly serious counterfeit card crime forces them to purchase chips that meet application requirements as soon as possible. The industry must become nervous and race against time to complete research and mass production before the large-scale card replacement in the banking industry in 2013.