Smart Card Alliance Latin America

Brasil Telecom Launches 3G Network with Gemalto's USIM Cards

Smart Card Alliance — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:29:00 -0400

Gemalto’s 3G technology enables Brasil Telecom mobile users to experience new, secure and faster wireless data services

São Paulo, June 5, 2008–Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, announces its selection by Brasil Telecom to provide USIM cards for the launch of its 3G network this month. The USIM technology, advanced software adapted for 3G networks and loaded in SIM cards, will allow Brasil Telecom’s users to access unique value added services and benefit from higher levels of security on electronic transactions performed with their mobiles.

Benjamin Binet, Gemalto’s Vice-President of Marketing for Latin America explains: “Our USIM technology enables Brasil Telecom 3G users to roam in any 3G network available around the world, thanks to a new software feature. In addition, USIM cards provided by Gemalto support future applications such as multimedia content distribution, mobile TV access and mobile payment.”

Gemalto is the first company qualified to supply Brasil Telecom’s USIM cards for its 3G network. These USIM cards provide mutual authentication between the user and the network, a security feature particularly important in mobile broadband connection, which allows mobile Internet users to perform their transactions in a safer manner. Benefits are that voice and data traffic is encrypted in the 3G network, preventing unauthorized parties from seeing the content. This security feature is especially important for financial transactions and corporate activities.

Roberto Rittes, Brasil’s Telecom Director of Mobile Operations and Business Development adds that “the USIM also offers a better address book than GSM network SIM cards, enabling the user to store more data, such as name, address and many contact telephone numbers, text messages (SMS) and other information. USIM cards are more secure and will improve our service business thanks to the improvement on the data transfer capacity.”

About Gemalto

Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO) is the leader in digital security with pro forma 2007 annual revenues of over €1.6 billion, more than 85 offices in 40 countries and about 10,000 employees including 1,300 R&D engineers. In a world where the digital revolution is increasingly transforming our lives, Gemalto’s solutions are designed to make personal digital interactions more convenient, secure and enjoyable. Gemalto provides end-to-end digital security solutions, from the development of software applications through design and production of secure personal devices such as smart cards, SIMs, e-passports, and tokens to the deployment of managed services for its customers. More than a billion people worldwide use the company’s products and services for telecommunications, financial services, e-government, identity management, multimedia content, digital rights management, IT security, mass transit and many other applications.

As the use of Gemalto’s software and secure devices increases with the number of people interacting in the digital and wireless world, the company is poised to thrive over the coming years. Gemalto was formed in June 2006 by the combination of Axalto and Gemplus. For more information please visit http://www.gemalto.com.

About Brasil Telecom

Brasil Telecom is the first Brazilian telecommunication company capable of satisfying the market demands in an integrated manner, by providing converging services in its fixed and mobile operations, data and voice, national and international long distance calls, data centers, broadband connection and dial-up access. In 2007, Brasil Telecom was the first telecommunication company in Brazil–and the second in Latin America–to launch the IPTV service, which enables the user to watch audiovisual contents, access Web content and play games online.

In Brazil, the company is a telephony service provider for millions of people who live in an area known as Region 2, which includes the following states: Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Goiás, Tocantins, Acre, Rondônia and Distrito Federal. Headquartered in Brasília (the capital), its subscribers base includes 8 million operating fixed terminals, over 4 million mob ile accesses, 282,000 public use terminals and 1.6 million ADSL (broadband) accesses.

Brasil Telecom Cabos Submarinos (“Globenet”) has 13,670 miles (22,000 km) of undersea cables connecting Brazil with South America, Bermuda and North America. The affiliate Brasil Telecom Comunicação Multimedia works, among other areas, in the country’s three major cities out of the coverage area: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, focusing on the business and corporate markets. Both companies offer complete national and international solutions, including Cyber Data Center.

For more information, please visit http://www.brasiltelecom.com.br (in Brazilian Portuguese).

Contacts

Gemalto
Rémi Calvet
T.: +33 (0) 1 55 01 64 10
M.: +33 (0) 6 22 72 81 58
E-mail: remi.calvet@gemalto.com

Natalia Fakhri
T.: + 55 21 9330 4099
natalia.fakhri@gemalto.com

Brasil Telecom
Firstcom
Roberto Constante
Tel: + 55 11 8111 6700
roberto@firstcom.com.br

Latin American Banks Moving Rapidly to Smart Cards: News From Smart Card Alliance/CTST Conference

Smart Card Alliance — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:28:00 -0400

PRINCETON JUNCTION, N.J., May 19, 2008–Rapidly rising fraud rates due to skimming of magnetic stripe credit cards and shifts in fraud liability are fueling the migration of Latin American banks to smart bankcards based on the global EMV standard, attendees learned at the joint Smart Card Alliance annual meeting and CTST conference last week.

An important impetus is the chip liability shift program that protects the party that has upgraded cards or terminals if fraud occurs, according Kim Hangoc, vice president de Gesto de Produtos do Centro de Excelncia for MasterCard Worldwide. The program is intraregional across all of Latin America and has to do with liability for fraudulent transactions based on skimmed (cloned) magnetic stripe cards. After January 2005, if a cloned magnetic stripe from a chip-enabled bankcard is used on a non-chip enabled merchant payment terminal, the acquirer is liable for the loss. If a skimmed magnetic stripe card is used in a chip-equipped terminal, the issuer is liable for the loss. In addition, a domestic liability shift recently went into place in Brazil in March 2008, and is planned for October 2008 in Mexico and July 2009 in Venezuela.

The banks in Brazil are in the middle of mass deployment, mainly motivated by fraud, Hangoc said. They are using chip cards and requiring a PIN for purchases, for both debit and credit cards. In Mexico the main motivation is not fraud but differentiation, and no PIN entry is required for purchases. Also the first MasterCard PayPass contactless card using the EMV standard was launched at the end of 2006 in Mexico. Banks in Colombia, Venezuela and Peru have started issuing and are in various stages of testing or implementation. Banks in other countries in the regional haven’t started issuing yet but are preparing, he said.

In Brazil skimming and cloned card fraud grew at a 43.5 percent CAGR between 2004 and 2006, according to Mario Mello, superintendente executivo de cartes, Banco Real ABN Amro. His bank has already issued two million smart bankcards and plans to double that number this year. One big plus for customers is that if the stripe on a chip-equipped card is skimmed, Banco Real can block magnetic stripe transactions on the card, but let the customer continue to make chip transactions until the card is replaced. More than 3,000 clients per month benefit from this service, improving customer satisfaction, he said. Also the bank generates U.S. $12.5 million per year incremental revenue from this service alone. Mello estimates that 28 percent of POS terminals in Brazil have chip readers now.

Banrisul, a large bank in southern Brazil issuing EMV bankcards, has cut its fraud losses at chip-enabled merchant terminals to zero, according to Jorge Krug, Senior IT Security Executive. Cloned card fraud on chip-enabled cards is also zero, he said. In addition, Banrisul has cut its Internet shopping fraud to zero on its chip cards, because the bank implemented a “card present” PKI application for online payment for its customers. In addition to the Banrisul issued certificate for online banking, customers can obtain and use PKI credentials with Brazil’s national public key infrastructure, ICP-Brasil. ICP is the acronym for PKI in Portuguese.

Mauricio Coelho, director of PKI for Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia DA Informacao (ITI), said ICP-Brasil has already issued two million digital certificates. The credential can be used for legally valid digital signatures for conducting high value Internet transactions and certifying electronic documents such as tax returns and payments; judiciary proceedings; credentials for doctors, dentists and other professionals; registry/notary signing; and other applications. As an indication of the potential for PKI in Brazil, there are ten million citizens every day in Brazil’s 15,000 registry offices. By 2011, 1,000 of these offices will be working with digital certificates, Coehlo said. ITI is a federal organization and is the root Certification Authority for ICP-Brasil.

Mexico is also migrating to smart bankcards with the liability shift effective on October 1, 2008, Carlos Avila, Operations Executive Director, Banorte, told conference attendees. Banorte has issued 0.7 million EMV credit cards out of a total of 1.3 million, and has equipped 30,400 of its 33,700 merchant terminals with chip, Avila said. The rest of the merchant terminals will be upgraded by year end. He estimates that of the 16 million credit card accounts at six leading banks in Mexico, six million have been upgraded to chip. The focus is on credit accounts, not debit, since the majority of debit accounts are used for cash withdrawals and not merchant payment, he said.

The Latin America track conference was organized by the Latin America chapter of the Smart Card Alliance. The chapter is building a strong industry alliance for collaboration, contributing to the accelerated use of smart card technology in the region. More information can be found at http://latinamerica.smartcardalliance.org.

About the Smart Card Alliance Latin America (SCALA)

The primary mission of the Smart Card Alliance Latin American chapter is in line with the overall goal of the Alliance: to stimulate the understanding, adoption, use and widespread application of smart cards. The Alliance plans to use specific projects such as bilingual education programs, market research, advocacy, industry relations and open forums to keep Latin American chapter organization members connected to industry leaders and innovative thought.

About the Smart Card Alliance

The Smart Card Alliance is a not-for-profit, multi-industry association working to stimulate the understanding, adoption, use and widespread application of smart card technology.

Through specific projects such as education programs, market research, advocacy, industry relations and open forums, the Alliance keeps its members connected to industry leaders and innovative thought. The Alliance is the single industry voice for smart cards, leading industry discussion on the impact and value of smart cards in the U.S. and Latin America. For more information please visit http://www.smartcardalliance.org.

Bienvenidos a Smart Card Alliance América Latina

Smart Card Alliance — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:14:00 -0400

La sección de América Latina se nutre de los conocimientos y experiencia de las organizaciones miembros para representar a la industria y dar a conocer sus posiciones en cada segmento del mercado. De esta manera se crea una poderosa alianza de la industria en la región, la cual contribuye a la expansión de la tecnología de las tarjetas inteligentes y a un ambiente de negocios favorable, además de ofrecer un incentivo para que todas las organizaciones colaboren en acelerar el uso de las tarjetas inteligentes en América Latina.

Misión

La misión de la Smart Card Alliance América Latina (SCALA, por sus siglas en inglés) es estimular la comprensión, adopción, uso y aplicación generalizada de la tecnología de tarjetas inteligentes a través de proyectos específicos que se enfocan en la región de América Latina. Estos proyectos incluyen: programas educativos, investigación de mercado, promoción y relaciones industriales, así como la agrupación, en un foro abierto, de los clientes y tecnólogos principales de los sectores públicos y privados. SCALA es una sección de la Smart Card Alliance (SCA), una asociación multi industrial sin fines de lucro.

Visión

La visión de SCALA es ser la voz unificada de la industria de las tarjetas inteligentes en América Latina, difundiendo el uso y conocimiento de esta tecnología en la región. Entre sus actividades está la participación en conferencias y talleres educacionales, a la vez que facilita las relaciones entre los miembros de SCA en Estados Unidos y de SCALA en América Latina.

Rapidly Growing Latin American Smart Card Market Receives Spotlight at CTST 2008--The Americas Conference

Smart Card Alliance — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:47:00 -0400

NEW YORK, April 16, 2008–The rapidly expanding Latin American smart card market will be given extra focus including a special daylong mini-track Wednesday, May 14th during CTST 2008–The Americas Conference. CTST 2008, the largest payment, security and identification conference in the Americas, will be held May 12th through 15th at the Orange County Convention Center West, in Orlando, Fla.

“The Latin American smart card market has made huge strides in a relatively short amount of time, with the migration to EMV in banking and GSM in mobile telecommunications, mobile banking initiatives, and government and commercial secure identification initiatives in progress throughout the region,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. “Having a full day session featuring these important developments will bring added value to our Latin American attendees and those attendees interested in gaining a better understanding of the Latin American market.”

The Latin American Spotlight will feature speaker panels from key smart card implementations in the region including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela and more. These speakers representing the region’s diversity of culture, experience and adoption levels will present in Spanish, Portuguese and English, with translation into English available for anyone interested. Attendees will receive a complete picture of the current state of the smart card industry in the region, as well as plans and projections for the future.

Attendees can visit http://www.sourcemediaconferences.com/CTST08/audio-messages.html to hear a special welcome message and overview of the Latin American Spotlight from Edgar Betts, track chair and associate director of the Smart Card Alliance Latin America Chapter (SCALA).

Sessions to look forward to include: the Latin American Regional Report, examining growth opportunities and the current electronic ID implementations within the region; the Latin American Payments Market, featuring key players discussing payment card technology and the uniqueness of the region in terms of implementations and marketing; and the Latin American Transit and Mobile, including discussions on smart card-based loyalty programs, transit implementations and mobile payment initiatives.

In addition to attending the sessions included in the Latin American Spotlight, CTST 2008 attendees are encouraged to visit the Smart Card Alliance Pavilion to meet with representatives of the SCALA, the Alliance’s Latin America Chapter organization. They will take away an understanding of the organization’s continuing efforts to educate and raise awareness of the advanced payments and security solutions enabled by smart card technology.

Early bird conference pricing and hotel discounts are available before April 18th. For the complete agenda and to register, please visit http://www.ctst.com.

About CTST 2008–The Americas Conference

CTST 2008–The Americas Conference combines the Smart Card Alliance annual meeting and SourceMedia’s CTST 2008 conference to feature 120+ speakers, 40 conference sessions, 20 hours of exhibit hall time and the Alliance’s prestigious Outstanding Smart Card Achievement (OSCA) awards. David Pogue, the humorous, tech-savvy New York Times technology columnist and Emmy-winning CBS news correspondent, will keynote the event luncheon.

New this year is a choice of four focused full conference tracks: Payments and Applications; Identification and Policy; Mobile and NFC (Near Field Communications); and Security & Access Control; plus two, one-day mini tracks: Emerging Technology and Innovation Spotlight, and Latin America Spotlight.

Exhibit Hall hours are: Tuesday, May 13th, 11:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.; Wednesday, May 14th, 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.; and Thursday, May 15th, 10:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. CTST 2008 sponsors are Oberthur Technologies, CoreStreet, Giesecke & Devrient, Infineon, Inside Contactless, Texas Instruments, Gemalto, First Data and NXP.

About SourceMedia Conferences and the Smart Card Alliance

Each year, SourceMedia Conferences & Events attract over 20,000 attendees worldwide to over 70 events. Its products include but are not limited to conferences, exhibitions, roundtables, exclusive dialogues for CEOs, CFOs and other top executives, Web seminars, road shows, Pod casts and custom events.

The Smart Card Alliance is a not-for-profit, multi-industry association working to stimulate the understanding, adoption, use and widespread application of smart card technology. It has over 170 members worldwide, including participants from financial, government, enterprise, transportation, mobile telecommunications, healthcare and retail industries.

XIRING readers for the Brazilian Ministry of Finance

Smart Card Alliance — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 09:12:00 -0500

December 20, 2007–XIRING has announced a partnership with E-Safetransfer and a first delivery of 15,000 Teo by XIRING readers for the Brazilian administration.

E-Safetransfer has received a purchase order for 15,000 Teo by XIRING readers from the Brazilian Ministry of Finance, through its department of Internal Revenue (R.F.B Receita Federal do Brazil), which are to be delivered immediately. This first contract with the Brazilian Government aims to equip the Department’s employees with smart card readers in line with the PKI smart card infrastructure in Brazil.

RFB is part of the Brazilian PKI initiative–ICP Brazil–for the development of PKI security tools. The National PKI initiative plans to issue over 8 million smart card certificates (e-CPF), through hundreds of Registration Authorities in the country within the next two years.

Teo by XIRING is a transparent PC/SC smart card reader that seamlessly integrates with PKI infrastructures. It is the interface between the smart card and the dedicated applications (online tax submission and payment applications). Teo by XIRING complies with market standards (USB v2.0, CCID) and is certified in MS Windows environments. Its innovative design and ergonomics make it a very easy to use, ‘plug and play’ reader.

“Teo by XIRING is a strong addition to our line of USB readers for loyalty, access control, banking and PKI government applications. Those customers who have already tested it have experienced its speed and see that it is an intelligent design. It has the potential to become the best selling PC/SC smart card reader in Brazil,”, says Neissan Monadjem, CEO of E-Safetransfer S.A.

“The security application market is very dynamic in Brazil, especially in the e-administration sector, but it requires a local partner. Our partnership with E-Safetransfer, a leading player in the Brazilian smart card business, will promote our product offering in this dynamic market,” says Georges Liberman, Chairman and CEO of XIRING.

The contract signed by E-Safetransfer has become a price reference model for other Public Institutions in Brazil wishing to directly acquire Teo units without having to initiate separate biddings.

Infineon Retains Market Leadership for Chip Card ICs Due To Excellent Security Expertise for Ten Consecutive Years

Smart Card Alliance — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:54:00 -0400

Neubiberg, Germany, September 10, 2007–Infineon Technologies (FSE/NYSE: IFX) retained its global market leadership in chips for card applications in 2006. In a recent report entitled “Global Smart Card IC Study 2006”, the US market research company Frost & Sullivan confirmed that Infineon achieved market leadership. In 2006, Infineon’s market share was 29.1 percent of the overall chip card IC (integrated circuit) market, totaling about $1.9 billion U.S. dollars according to Frost & Sullivan. This makes Infineon the global market leader for chip card ICs for the tenth consecutive year. The market research company also affirms that Infineon is the market leader in volume shipments of security microcontrollers for chip cards. Infineon shipped 844 million microcontroller units in the 3.06 billion microcontroller market, leading it to exceed the 27.5 percent mark.

“Infineon has played an outstanding role in the smart card field throughout the last decade. Despite hard times in the industry, Infineon has always managed to keep its leadership by addressing a variety of applications with a wide portfolio and a broad customer base and today has an excellent reputation for its security expertise,” said Anoop Ubhey, Global Programme Director, Smart Cards ICT at Frost & Sullivan market research company.

Infineon is strong in chip card growth fields: contactless, ID and payment Furthermore, Frost & Sullivan asserts that Infineon has a leading position in several of today’s growth markets for the chip card industry, including contact-based and contactless interface, with the trend towards the contactless interface. In the upcoming years, Frost & Sullivan anticipates the market for contactless cards to grow by an average of 34 percent year-on-year. For contactless interfaces, Infineon has expanded its Mifare® portfolio towards microcontrollers and is today the only provider of contactless chips that are compatible with all the contactless standards including Mifare, ISO/IEC14443 B, A, and FeliCa®.

Infineon is the world’s leading supplier of security chips in the payment segment, including credit cards and payment cards. Also, Infineon is strong in high-security applications including identification for electronic passports or personal ID on smartcards.

“The demand for secure, hardware-based solutions is increasing due to the integration of security chips in electronic travel documents,” said Dr. Helmut Gassel, Vice President and General Manager, Chip Card and Security ICs at Infineon Technologies. “Hardware-based security is a necessity for entering this market, especially when it comes to new applications such as identification and payment.” According to Gassel, Infineon is supplying roughly 70 million chips to government ID projects in 2007, with volume-issuing having just begun in some of these projects. Infineon currently ships close to 50 percent of the market total in the government ID segment (without the China ID project), with 35 percent specifically in the e-passport segment, Gassel estimates.

Another major growth field, where Infineon is strong, is the mobile communication with high-end SIM (subscriber identification module) cards as a pivotal point for mobile television and near field communication (NFC) including high-density SIM cards offering memory space in the singleor double-digit megabyte range over the medium term. High single-digit memory capacities are required for functionalities such as enhanced address books, Mobile-TV, key storage for audio and video decryption/encryption, access to smart card web servers defined by network operators, and NFC applications.

“Infineon seeks to achieve profitable growth by pursuing a strategy of tailored security to offer every customer application the right security levels,” adds Dr. Helmut Gassel. “We are in the forefront of chip-based security development and are proud that so many customers appreciate these efforts and select Infineon’s products.”

Together with energy efficiency and communication, security is one of the three focus areas of Infineon. The company is contributing its more than 20 years of security expertise, gained in the development and production of chip card ICs and security ICs, to the effort to increase the security of today’s solutions in communications, reliable identification of persons and goods, banking, access protection for data and networks, and digital home entertainment electronics.

For further information on Infineon’s product portfolio of chip card and security ICs, please go to http://www.infineon.com/security.

About Infineon

Infineon Technologies AG, Neubiberg, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions addressing three central challenges to modern society: energy efficiency, communications and security. In fiscal year 2006 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 7.9 billion (including Qimonda sales of Euro 3.8 billion) with approximately 42,000 employees worldwide (including approximately 12,000 Qimonda employees). With a global presence, Infineon operates through its subsidiaries in the US from Milpitas, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore, and in Japan from Tokyo. Infineon is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX).

Further information is available at http://www.infineon.com.

This news release is available online at http://www.infineon.com/press/.

All trademarks are the property of their respective companies.

The top market players in the chip card IC market in 2006

According to market report “Global Smart Card IC Study” (published end of August 2007) of US market research firm Frost & Sullivan, the overall chip card IC market in 2006 totaled about $1.9 Billion U.S. dollars.

The top chip card IC market players in 2006 were:

Infineon Technologies: 29.1%
Samsung: 15.5%
NXP: 14.3%
Atmel: 13.0%
Renesas: 12.5%
STMicroelectronics: 6.9%
Others: 8.7%

Infineon Provides Security Chips for Largest US Patient Smart Card Project

Smart Card Alliance — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:49:00 -0400

Neubiberg, Germany, September 10, 2007–Infineon Technologies AG (FSE/ NYSE: IFX), the world’s leading supplier of integrated circuits (ICs) for chip cards, today announced it is the sole chip supplier for the largest patient healthcare card in United States. Siemens, Mount Sinai Medical Center and Elmhurst Hospital Center have formed a health smart card alliance to deploy up to 1.2 million Patient Health Smart Cards to link as many as 45 affiliated and related medical facilities in the New York metro area. The patient health smart card trial has begun late 2006 and is scheduled to end in 2007. In 2008, the health smart card alliance expects to issue approximately 500,000 smart cards which integrate a highly secure Infineon microcontroller.

The patient health smart cards are issued by the affiliated and related medical facilities with the patient’s printed photo. To use the card, the patient inserts the card into a card reader and enters a private, personal identification number (PIN) to unlock the data on the smart card security crypto-controller. The crypto-controller securely stores the demographic data for the patient, including name, gender, contact information; allergies; current medical history; and lab results. The patient card is based on the Health Card Solution of Siemens and meets the US Food and Drug Administration’s requirements for Class 1 medical devices that are mandatory to introduce medical products or services.

“The ideal concept of having integrated care across all hospitals and institutions will take a while,” said Doris Hermann, Vice President and General Manager, Security and Identity Management, Siemens AG. “Using a smart card is a way in between. Because first you have the advantages of data on the card, then we can help hospitals to gradually migrate towards even more sophisticated IT concepts.”

“Compared to the current method of using paper documents, smart card technology improves administrational efficiency and patient safety by providing accurate medical data and insurance coverage information,” said Dr. Helmut Gassel, Vice President and General Manager, Chip Card and Security ICs, Infineon Technologies. “Infineon is committed to serving the health card industry. This program has the potential to further initiate patient smart cards throughout the US.”

Today, Infineon provides its secure microcontroller chips to the world’s largest national patient cards, health insurance cards and social security cards, including Italy, Taiwan, Slovenia, Spain, India, Poland, Great Britain, and Germany.

The Patient Health Smart Card initiative uses a smart card operating system (OS) of Siemens. This OS is embedded onto the highly-secure contact-based Infineon smart card controller SLE 66CX680PE. The high-performance crypto-controller features an integral security concept providing multiple levels of physical protection and encryption and is certified according to Common Criteria “EAL 5+ high” certification. It offers 68 Kbytes of EEPROM, 196 Kbytes of ROM, and 4 Kbytes of RAM.

Further information on Infineon’s chip card IC product portfolio is available at http://www.infineon.com/security.

About Infineon

Further information is available at http://www.infineon.com.

This news release is available online at http://www.infineon.com/press/.

Gemalto Opens New Personalization Service Center in São Paulo, Brazil

Smart Card Alliance — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:09:00 -0400

New card personalization center has the capacity to meet growing demand in Finance and Public sectors

São Paulo, Aug 30, 2007–Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, opens a new Personalization Service Center in Brazil in order to better address the demand of its customers in the Finance and Public sectors of the Brazilian and South Cone markets (Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina). The new Barueri center, in the State of São Paulo, will deliver advanced personalization and distribution services for Gemalto’s secure personal devices. The new facility will enhance the capabilities of the company’s existing Curitiba’s production center, in Paraná, which has been producing chip cards since 1999 and is compliant with the highest levels of security required by Visa and MasterCard.

“According to figures published by ABECS in 2007 (Brazilian Association of Credit Cards and Services Companies), there are approximately 280 million banking debit and credit cards currently in circulation, plus 116 million retail store credit cards” comments Luis Cohen, commercial director for the Gemalto FInance sector in Latin America. “With the migration to more capable intelligent secure personal devices, we clearly have a huge potential here in Brazil and in the whole region”.

Gemalto chose Brazil for the installation of this new Personalization Service Center because of the strong demand created by the local market. Out of the 280 million banking cards in circulation in Brazil, more than 20 million have already been upgraded to contain a secure microprocessor chip. More cards are also issued in this Financial Services segment every year: debit and credit cards increased in volume by an average annual growth of respectively 21 percent and 15 percent according to the ABECS 2007 survey.

“In order to continue to serve the need for production and development of high-end technology in Brazil, Gemalto has installed its new center with an initial capacity to personalize smart cards in line with current demand” says José Luiz Pellegrini, manufacturing director of Gemalto. “However the current capacity may be increased very quickly if there is an increase in demand”.

Gemalto expects the demand for microprocessor cards in the Public Sector to increase in the next couple of years, as the substitution of paper documents to more secure solutions progresses. This trend is mainly driven by losses incurred by false identification. In the UK for example, according to a study from the Home Office Identity Fraud Steering Committee, the losses to the British economy related to ID fraud amount to around £1.7 billion (R$ 7.6 billion) per year. In Brazil, it is estimated that falsification of ID cards is responsible for 72% of all finance and commercial institutions fraud schemes (source: Polícia Civil do Distrito Federal).

With the installation of this new service center, Gemalto reinforces its commitment to its customers and partners in the Brazilian and South Cone market.

About Gemalto

Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO) is a leader in digital security with pro forma 2006 annual revenues of €1.7 billion, operations in about 100 countries and over 10,000 employees including 1,500 R&D engineers. In a world where the digital revolution is increasingly transforming our lives, Gemalto’s solutions are designed to make personal digital interactions more convenient, secure and enjoyable.

Gemalto provides end-to-end digital security solutions, from the development of software applications through design and production of secure personal devices such as smart cards, SIMs, e-passports, and tokens to the management of deployment services for its customers. More than a billion people worldwide use the company’s products and services for telecommunications, financial services, e-government, identity management, multimedia content, digital rights management, IT security, mass transit and many other applications.

For more information please visit http://www.gemalto.com.

Contacts

Gemalto
Emmanuelle Saby
Tel: +33 (0) 1 55 01 57 27
Tel: +33 (0) 6 09 10 76 10
E-mail: emmanuelle.saby@gemalto.com

TBWA\Corporate
Emlyn Korengold
Tel: +33 6 08 21 93 74
E-mail: emlyn.korengold@tbwa-corporate.com

Gemalto Delivers First Smart Card Driving License Program in Mexico

Smart Card Alliance — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:20:00 -0400

Amsterdam, the Netherlands, June 13, 2007–Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), a world leader in digital security, today announces that it has successfully delivered Mexico’s first smart card driving license to the city of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, Mexico. The contract includes 900,000 driving licenses over a period of 3 years. This new card also acts as a reliable ID document and opens up the potential for additional e-schemes like healthcare for the benefits of all citizens.

The solution includes the Gemalto smart card platform that will securely store the driver’s information, and a sophisticated card body with specific security features that makes it difficult to copy and counterfeit. Prime contractor Cosmocolor handles the enrollment process and provides on-site personalization of the solution.

The driving license is a chip-based ID document that entitles a specific person to drive a certain category of vehicle. The microprocessor securely stores a high-resolution picture of the holder, his/her blood type, and the drivers’ credentials to enable digital signature. The chip also contains the history of drivers’ fines, allowing the transit authorities to easily monitor drivers’ behavior on the roads and could, in the future, be used for insurance companies to calculate policy costs. Fingerprint and facial picture of the driver are encoded in the card body.

In the street the policemen will be holding a handheld terminal. This new terminal can read the microprocessor of the driving license, showing on screen the digitalized picture stored in the chip. The policeman then can see whether it matches the picture encoded in the card body of the driving license. The terminal also encodes a list of most frequent driving penalties and enables the policeman to write into the chip the corresponding code each time the driver breaks the law, as well as other details such as the date and place.

“Thanks to this new scheme, we are now sure to have the fines and sanctions apply to the driver and not the vehicle,” explains Jorge Domene, director of the Instituto de Control Vehicular. “The other major benefit of this smart card-based program lies in the information sharing capability since the chip allows for collecting and sharing information about the driver with other public Mexican institutions. We now can compare the fingerprint and photos with the Justice Department for example, making the driving license an efficient tool for public security”.

Eric Claudel, vice president Latin America for Gemalto, comments: “The Instituto de Control Vehicular chose to adopt a smart card-based solution combining the latest biometrics identification techniques with the most advanced security features. As a result, the Nuevo Leon state now enjoys a fast, secure and user-friendly scheme for driver registration, which should reduce fraud and administration costs. As this new card also acts as the national ID document, it might as well be upgraded with additional e-services like healthcare.”

About Gemalto

Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO) is a leader in digital security with pro forma 2006 annual revenues of €1.7 billion, operations in about 100 countries and more than 10,000 employees including 1,500 R&D engineers. In a world where the digital revolution is increasingly transforming our lives, Gemaltoï¿½s solutions are designed to make personal digital interactions more convenient, secure and enjoyable.

Contacts

Media Relation
Emmanuelle Saby
T: +33 1 55 01 57 27
M: +33 (0)6 09 10 76 10
emmanuelle.saby@gemalto.com

Investor Relations
Stï¿½phane Bisseuil
T: +33 1 55 01 50 97
E-mail: stephane.bisseuil@gemalto.com

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