Mondex

Mondex, part of the MasterCard WorldWide suite of smart card products, enables cardholders to carry, store and spend cash value using a payment card. It is faster than handling conventional currency, and in many cases safer. It behaves exactly like cash, offering immediate transfer of value while requiring no signature, PIN or transaction authorization. The Mondex platform allows its use in multiple channels where cash cannot be used including: Internet, Mobile phones, Interactive. Television. Mondex stores value as electronic information on a microchip, rather than as physical notes and coins. Value is exchanged securely from the chip on the card to a chip in a terminal/card reader.
Mondex cash can be used for purchases of any size. Technically, there is no practical limit to the amount of cash which could be held in and transferred from a Mondex card, but there will be limits set within each country consistent with local regulation and market demand. With Mondex, cardholders can only spend what is on their card, so there is no risk of going into debt. The 'purse' keeps an up-to-the-minute record of the amounts and places of expenditure.

I disagree that Mondex is privacy friendly, anonymous, and cash-like as they claim to be. In late September I interviewed the project manager of the Swindon experiment (Rob Jameson) and was told without equivocation that Mondex uses a full audit trail of all transactions. Jameson told me all retailers have a card linked record of all transactions which are available to the bank. This directly contradicts the publicity. Mondex, in fact, uses the same audit trail systems as any other card system. Then I see no way why they tell they are the best and most secure? They are lying then!