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Updated : Tuesday 13 August 2002

This month's BIG Smart Card stories

MasterCard Complete Europay Merger

MasterCard has completed its merger with longstanding European partner Europay to form what it describes as a "unified, shareholder-owned global payments company".

Europay is to be integrated into the global organisation as MasterCard's 'Europe Region'. The new division will continue to be based at the Europay HQ in Waterloo (Belgium) and current Europay chief executive Dr. Peter Hoch will continue his leadership as president of the new MasterCard European division.

MasterCard president and CEO Robert W. Selander said that by joining Europay's strength in m-commerce, Smart Cards, and debit cards with MasterCard's leadership in customer relationship management, award-winning brand marketing, and leading-edge processing technology, "the financial institutions we serve will receive superior support and delivery whether they operate in one country, on one continent, or in diverse markets around the world."

As part of the newly integrated company, MasterCard is to launch two new Centres of Excellence in Belgium and the United States. The centres will be aimed at providing information, resources and tools for MasterCard members.

Gemplus Find The Road To Recovery

Gemplus has released details of its second quarter figures (ended June 30th) which has seen the company mount a steady recovering following six months of growing losses.

Compared with the first quarter, revenue was up 19% to Euro209.8m, whilst gross profit was up 34% to Euro48.4m. Operating loss for the quarter stood at Euro24.2m - almost half the first quarter level but did not include an additional restructuring charge of Euro43.1m.

It was also announced that Ronald Mackintosh will step down as Interim Chief Executive Officer on August 15 although the board did not disclose who his successor would be. Mackintosh is expected to continue to serve as a non-executive director

Mackintosh said: "I believe I have done the job I came to Gemplus to do. The business is performing as planned and is well advanced on its longer term objective as well as fully confident of achieving its short-term goals. Gemplus knows where it's heading and how to get there."

Mexico Moves To Smart Tax Payment System

The Mexican government is to relocate a quarter of its tax staff as it transfers tax payments over to its new Smart Card based electronic payment system which goes live on the 1st August.

According to reports in the Mexican daily El Norte, taxpayers in certain income brackets must use either the Internet or a Smart Card at special terminals and banks. The new scheme claims to cut processing time from 15 days to one day and takes over the work of almost 700 accounting staff.

At present online payment is restricted to clients of the Inbursa, ING, Bital and Banamex banks as these are the only banks with which the treasury has the necessary agreements in place, although BBVA Bancomer, Banorte and Bank of Boston are all expected to be to certified this week.

UK Snap Up New SIM Card Patent

UK-based intellectual property licensing company BTG is to announce that it has registered a new SIM card patent despite alleged opposition from leading SIM card manufacturers including Gemplus and Schlumberger.

BTG acquired the portfolio of Smart Card patents from Celltrace Communications Ltd. The new technology will allow new customers (or new services) to be provisioned over the air and claims to be able to transform mobiles, PDAs, ATMs and point of sale machines into retail outlets.

According to the Financial Times, the patent could be worth 'tens of millions of pounds a year' to BTG if it is able to negotiate standard licensing percentages with the SIM card makers. Advanced SIM cards retail for around $5 with a typical licensing royalty of 1% to 5%.

An appeal against the European Patent Office's decision can be made ahead of the written decision scheduled to be issued on August 14 (a verbal decision has already been given). However, BTG said it expected no appeal to be registered as the decision was 'upheld decisively'.

ST Launch World's First USB-Certified Smart Card Chips

STMicroelectronics (ST) has announced that it has started volume deliveries of the ST19XT34, which it claims is the world's first secure microcontroller to receive USB certification for use in Smart Cards and tokens.

The device integrates a highly secure microcontroller core, a large non-volatile memory and both USB and standard ISO 7816 interfaces. The USB interface includes full clock recovery, eliminating the need for external components such as clock crystals and pull-up resistors.

"In developing the ST19XT34, our aim was to bridge the gap to the PC world by offering a Smart Card chip that harnessed the simplicity of USB while providing both high performance at very low cost and backward compatibility with ISO 7816-3 solutions," said Maurizio Felici, Group Vice President and General Manager of ST's Smart Card Division.

Authentos Fight For Survival

Representatives of German holding company Authentos are to meet with the German finance ministry and the Landesbank Hessen-Thuringen (Helaba) bank today to ask for a debt waiver for its subsidiary company Bundesdruckerei.

According to a report in German newspaper Borsen Zeitung, Helaba had initially refused to write off Euro200m ($197m) in debt owed by the company who control Orga and the UK based Security Printing and Systems (SPS). It is rumoured that Authentos may have to sell off parts of its group to settle the debt.

Many attributed the problems to an overestimation of the value of Orga which occurred when Authentos originally bought out Bundesdruckerei.

 

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