A smart card and a settlement terminal are provided by which, when
common-key cryptography is used for value transfer between smart cards,
the security of the whole system can be improved by enabling easy
updating of a cryptographic key used for the value transfer. A smart card
transmits/receives value data to/from another smart card. The smart card
includes an information accumulating unit for accumulating value data, a
transfer key used to update the value data, and an update key used to
update the transfer key; a communication unit for receiving a transfer
key encrypted by use of the update key, the transfer key being
transmitted from another smart card; and an arithmetic processing unit
for decrypting the encrypted transfer key by use of the update key to
update the transfer key accumulated in the information accumulating unit
by use of the decrypted transfer key.