Contact and Contactless cards are plastic identification cards containing electronic memory and, in some cases, an embedded integrated circuit (known as chip cards).
Contactless Cards
Contactless cards house an integrated circuit chip. They provide not only memory capacity, but computational capability as well.
RFID Card
Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a generic term that is used to describe a system that transmits the identity (in the form of a unique serial number) of an object or person wirelessly, using radio waves. An RFID system consists of an antenna and a transceiver, which read the radio frequency and transfer the information to a processing device, as well as a transponder (or tag), which is an integrated circuit on the plastic smart card containing the radio frequency circuitry and information to be transmitted.
NFC Card
A subtype of RFID is NFC, which stands for near field communication, enabling two devices to communicate within a very short range. NFC cards add a layer of security to information transactions.
