The past few days have been quite difficult for the investors in SmartMetric Inc (OTCMKTS:SMME) as the stock continued on its downward slide. The stock suffered from a selloff on Friday yet again to end the day with a decline of as much as 10%. That took the decline over the course of the past week to as much as 32%.
Trading Data
On Friday, SMME stock slid 9.62% to $0.0047 with more than 1.34 million shares, compared to its average volume of 1.63 million shares. The stock moved within a range of $0.0047 – 0.0052 after opening trading at $1.63 million.
Before getting into the latest developments with regards to SmartMetric, it may be a good time for investors to consider taking a look at the company’s operations a bit more closely. SmartMetric is still regarded as a development stage company that is involved in the technology sector. The company is involved in the business of biometric cards, which are then issued as a variety of payment cards.
In addition to that, SmartMetric also offers a built-in rechargeable battery so as to enable portable card activation and biometric identification. The company had actually been established back in 2002 and is currently based out of Las Vegas in Nevada. Although the stock has performed poorly in recent days, the company actually made a key announcement on Friday with regards to the latest trends in the payment cards industry.
SmartMetric Welcomes the Death of the Magnetic Stripe on Credit and Debit Cards as Chip-Based Cards Combined With Biometrics Take Hold
Not too long ago Mastercard announced that starting from 2024, it will no longer be necessary for card issuers to deploy magnetic strips in their debit cards and credit cards. In the statement, Mastercard noted that due to the emergence of chip-powered payments, the importance of magnetic strip-powered payments had declined considerably. Hence, all the cards that are going to be issued by Mastercard from 2024 in most of the markets are not required to have magnetic strips.
The decision to do away with magnetic strips is another step to combat payments fraud. This was a move that was welcomed by SmartMetric, which noted that magnetic strips had become a ‘dinosaur’ of payments technology in a world in which debit and credit cards had become quite a high tech.
ChayaHendrick, who is the Chief Executive Officer and President of SmartMetric, noted that a secure chip on payment cards along with a biometric reader is perhaps the most effective way by way of which a card user could be identified. Hendrick went on to note that the biometric technology that has been created by SmartMetric would be perfect for such a future. The technology is not only going to help in the replacement of magnetic strips but also in the replacement of four-digit pins that are used by most users to this day.
The secure payment chip and fingerprint technology are two ways in which it could be possible for card issuers to make payment cards more secure than ever before. Consequently, it is going to help in phasing out insecure features like magnetic strips and four-digit PIN numbers. Despite the selloff in the stock over the course of the past few days, it now remains to be seen if the stock could make a quick recovery this week.
Technical Data
SMME stock is trading below the 20-Day and 50-Day Moving averages of $0.0065 and $0.0067 respectively. Moreover, the stock is trading below the 200-Day moving average of $0.0111. The company has a total market capitalization of $2.89 million. The stock is down 49% over the past 3-month.
