Roland Moreno's ubiquitous invention

In early 1974, Roland Moreno made what would turn out to be a groundbreaking discovery. He uncovered the existence of a type of memory that preserves information without the need for energy.

Moreno claimed to have thought of the smart card concept in a dream, telling France Soir in a 2006 interview, "I came up with the idea in my sleep... To be honest, I'm a lazy bum and my productivity is on the feeble side. I'm jealous, spendthrift, a total couch potato and absent-minded – I've got my real Professor Nimbus side."

He also joked he got the idea after smoking a joint. No one is certain of the real story.

On March 25, 1974, he filed the first patent of the invention which will be his greatest stroke of genius, the "electronic chip of payment".

A personalized and portable integrated microcircuit memory, which via code guarantees "simple and secure" information exchange with a dedicated off-line terminal.

The very first version of the chip is mounted on a ring, then it is integrated into a plastic card in standard format.

During the following year, he develops his idea and surrounds himself with friends to specify the essential characteristics of his invention.

- control by the card reader of the code contained in the chip
- counting of code errors and self-destruction of the chip
- the protection of areas containing confidential data

The project "Take the Money and Run" (a nod at Woody Allen) revolutionized the banking and telecommunications world.

After ten years of perseverance, sharing of convictions, struggle and "luck", the Smart Card becomes a real social phenomenon.

43 patents will be filed to protect the smart card.

...a prepaid memory card...

...usable in any telephone booth.

In 1989, 100 million phone cards were sold, and they became collectors' items.

In 1992 more than 500 million phone cards were sold, and all bank cards adopted the smart chip.

Electronic banking, identification, mobile telephony, telecommunications, health, transport - today more than 300 billion smart cards are used worldwide.

1991, Roland Moreno is made Knight of the Legion of Honor.

In June 1990, Roland Moreno publishes the "Theory of the brothel environment" at Belfond editions.

In 1996, he received the Eduard Rhein Prize, the German equivalent of the Nobel Prize.