Contactless Smart Card Systems

A contactless smart card is any pocket-sized card with embedded integrated circuits that can process and store data, and communicate with a terminal via radio waves. There are two broad categories of contactless smart cards. Memory cards contain non-volatile memory storage components, and perhaps some specific security logic. Contactless smart cards do not contain an ordinary read-only RFID, but they do contain a re-writeable smart card microchip that can be transcribed via radio waves.

The first contactless smart card in production use for fare payment was the Octopus card,[citation needed] introduced in Hong Kong in 1997 for the territory's mass transit system.