The smart card plays a multifaceted role at universities. On the one hand, there is the identification with the university. There is hardly a university that does not want to give its smart card a piece of its university's identity through an individual design. On the other hand, there are very specific usage scenarios such as student or employee ID cards, library loans or access control, as well as payment functions on campus and in the cafeteria. At the same time, the chip card should also be usable across institutions. This is already the case at most universities, where the payment function of the chip card is usually used by the student union.

bwCard is now taking the next step and making it possible to use the card at other universities in Baden-Württemberg and, in the future, at other student unions as well. bwCard provides the infrastructure for cross-institutional use. Equally important, if not more so, are the bwCard services that individuals with a bwCard can take advantage of.

This is made possible by two initiatives that emerged from the bwCard project and are now being continued on a permanent basis by the state's universities.