Smart Cards: Some Social Implications

This paper examines some of the social implications of Smartcard technology in the context of its role as a retail payment mechanism and explores some of the consequences in relation to what, in the future, may come to constitute money. It draws heavily on the research undertaken on behalf the Commission for the Future, by the School's Centre of Electronic Commerce, and a truncated version of it appears as Chapter 6 of the Centre's Report to the Commission.