Infineon’s security chip used for Europe’s biggest contactless bank card project

The 'girogo' project offers contactless payment facilities to more than 1.3 million customers in a variety of shops and fuel stations in Germany for smaller payments up to €20. Customers simply hold the card bearing the contactless chip in front of a reader at the check-out and the payment is processed in less than a second. It can also be inserted into a terminal for regular payments. Dr Stefan Hofschen, president of the Chip Card and Security Division at Infineon Technologies, said: "Infineon is the world's first chip manufacturer to meet both the high German Banking Industry Committee security guidelines and the contactless performance requirements of the new bank cards in Germany." The security microcontroller utilises Infineon's Integrity Guard technology, fulfils EMVCo (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) security requirements for payment cards and meets the Common Criteria EAL 5+ (high) international standard. Data is stored and processed within the chip in encrypted form and there are two cpus which cross-check each other continuously, ensuring attempted attacks are detected immediately and protective action is taken.