French microchip engineer Jean-Pierre Gloton slips a thin rectangle of plastic into a port linked to a PC and types in a code. Voila! A personalized Web navigator blossoms on the screen. "With this, I can access various e-mail accounts and websites, trade stocks, buy goods and pay bills with a single click, using personal and banking information stored in a fraud-proof way," says Gloton, 56, as he removes the "smart card" that gives him these powers and returns it to his wallet. "This card contains a microchip that makes it a veritable minicomputer—with memory and processing power," he goes on. "I can use it with any PC on Earth. It canšt be used by anyone else, since only I know the code. It can't even be hacked into, since I'm usually sitting on it when it's not in use!"

The card, introduced this month under the name GemUtilities, is made by France's Gemplus, which in only 12 years of existence has become the world's leading producer of smart cards—with Gloton as its director of technology and resident genius. Americans have lagged behind Europeans in the use of smart cards but are starting to catch up. Last month Visa