NEW YORK, April 16, 2008–The rapidly expanding Latin American smart card market will be given extra focus including a special daylong mini-track Wednesday, May 14th during CTST 2008–The Americas Conference. CTST 2008, the largest payment, security and identification conference in the Americas, will be held May 12th through 15th at the Orange County Convention Center West, in Orlando, Fla.

“The Latin American smart card market has made huge strides in a relatively short amount of time, with the migration to EMV in banking and GSM in mobile telecommunications, mobile banking initiatives, and government and commercial secure identification initiatives in progress throughout the region,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. “Having a full day session featuring these important developments will bring added value to our Latin American attendees and those attendees interested in gaining a better understanding of the Latin American market.”

The Latin American Spotlight will feature speaker panels from key smart card implementations in the region including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela and more. These speakers representing the region’s diversity of culture, experience and adoption levels will present in Spanish, Portuguese and English, with translation into English available for anyone interested. Attendees will receive a complete picture of the current state of the smart card industry in the region, as well as plans and projections for the future.

Attendees can visit http://www.sourcemediaconferences.com/CTST08/audio-messages.html to hear a special welcome message and overview of the Latin American Spotlight from Edgar Betts, track chair and associate director of the Smart Card Alliance Latin America Chapter (SCALA).

Sessions to look forward to include: the Latin American Regional Report, examining growth opportunities and the current electronic ID implementations within the region; the Latin American Payments Market, featuring key players discussing payment card technology and the uniqueness of the region in terms of implementations and marketing; and the Latin American Transit and Mobile, including discussions on smart card-based loyalty programs, transit implementations and mobile payment initiatives.

In addition to attending the sessions included in the Latin American Spotlight, CTST 2008 attendees are encouraged to visit the Smart Card Alliance Pavilion to meet with representatives of the SCALA, the Alliance’s Latin America Chapter organization. They will take away an understanding of the organization’s continuing efforts to educate and raise awareness of the advanced payments and security solutions enabled by smart card technology.

Early bird conference pricing and hotel discounts are available before April 18th. For the complete agenda and to register, please visit http://www.ctst.com.

About CTST 2008–The Americas Conference

CTST 2008–The Americas Conference combines the Smart Card Alliance annual meeting and SourceMedia’s CTST 2008 conference to feature 120+ speakers, 40 conference sessions, 20 hours of exhibit hall time and the Alliance’s prestigious Outstanding Smart Card Achievement (OSCA) awards. David Pogue, the humorous, tech-savvy New York Times technology columnist and Emmy-winning CBS news correspondent, will keynote the event luncheon.

New this year is a choice of four focused full conference tracks: Payments and Applications; Identification and Policy; Mobile and NFC (Near Field Communications); and Security & Access Control; plus two, one-day mini tracks: Emerging Technology and Innovation Spotlight, and Latin America Spotlight.

Exhibit Hall hours are: Tuesday, May 13th, 11:30 a.m. – 6:30 p.m.; Wednesday, May 14th, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.; and Thursday, May 15th, 10:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. CTST 2008 sponsors are Oberthur Technologies, CoreStreet, Giesecke & Devrient, Infineon, Inside Contactless, Texas Instruments, Gemalto, First Data and NXP.

About SourceMedia Conferences and the Smart Card Alliance

Each year, SourceMedia Conferences & Events attract over 20,000 attendees worldwide to over 70 events. Its products include but are not limited to conferences, exhibitions, roundtables, exclusive dialogues for CEOs, CFOs and other top executives, Web seminars, road shows, Pod casts and custom events.

The Smart Card Alliance is a not-for-profit, multi-industry association working to stimulate the understanding, adoption, use and widespread application of smart card technology. It has over 170 members worldwide, including participants from financial, government, enterprise, transportation, mobile telecommunications, healthcare and retail industries.