It's been a whole 10 years since STS launched Emvelink, our award winning flagship product. Much has changed in the payments industry since then and Emvelink has evolved to not only keep up with these changes, but to be ready for any future developments.

The STS team braved the icy cold weather of New York in January to exhibit at Retail's BIG Show, hosted by the National Retail Federation (NRF). Although North America was experiencing a down turn in the economy, which sadly reflected in attendees this year, it still achieved close to 17,000 registrants, with no less than 62 countries represented. This gave us the perfect opportunity to promote ourselves as the truly global solution provider that we are and to get the low down from our cousins across the Atlantic on their payment market.

STS recently had the opportunity to discuss the use of smart cards with some of the key industry players of the Fuel & Forecourt sector. Recognised as innovators within the world of smart cards STS was asked their opinion on the best way to move this payments area forward. With many things to consider, none more than the customer experience, it seems that there are quite a few options open to the issuers of fuel cards.

In 2008, EMVCo announced that EMV certifications would now have an expiry date, necessitating new EMVCo Level 2 certification for new customer rollouts every 3 years. The intention of this change was to ensure that the EMV standard maintained interoperability and new installations were not being rolled out with dated and superseded solutions.

With projects in 13 markets, our lucky STS team gets to see some interesting places and people. Tokyo definitely tops the list of places to visit: the culture is amazing and we have some wonderful, supportive partners there. Tokyo also provides an insight into our future technology - what you see in Japan today, we see elsewhere tomorrow. From the Shikansen bullet train to the sights and sounds of Akihabara a.k.a. Electric Town, Tokyo is definitely an eye-opener for innovation.