Apollo Colours has been Awarded the Queens Award for Export Achievement
On her birthday Her Majesty The Queen was graciously pleased to confer on Apollo Colours Ltd the Queens Award for Enterprise 2009 in the International Trade Category.
The award which is formally conferred by Grant of Appointment and is symbolized by a presentation item depicting the Queens Award Emblem.
The Queens Award which is one of the most coveted commercial awards is announced annually and is restricted to a few companies who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in their category. The Award recognizes Apollo Colours Ltd’s exceptional growth in export sales over a six year period. This growth has been achieved by maintaining a high standard of product development and innovation with excellent customer service.
As part of the Award Apollo Colours Ltd is given the right to use the Queens symbol on all of its stationary, correspondence, marketing and promotional material for a period of 5 years. Apollo Colours Ltd who celebrated their 25th Anniversary in 2008 exports its products to more than 60 countries worldwide.
Discover Launches Biodegradable Credit Cards
Discover Financial Services has introduced a biodegradable credit card that breaks down when exposed to microorganisms, New York Times reports. Paul Kappus, Jr., the owner and president of BIOPVC, says the additive is something that acts like a bait to microorganisms. When the microbes are attracted to the BIOPVC, they consume the carbon in the product, and decompose it into CO2, water and a mild salt. Kappus says no toxic vinyl chloride remains.
In 2006, there were nearly 1.5 billion credit cards in use in the U.S., according to United States Census Bureau. A stack of all those credit cards would be almost as tall as 13 Mount Everests.
Corporations like GE, MetaBank and Barclaycard have also issued their own versions of green credit cards. Most allow users to reduce their carbon footprint by using their rewards to purchase carbon offsets or investing the rewards in green projects.
ELKART Celebrates Ten Year Anniversary
It was ten years ago, on April 21, 1999, that the notary deed founding the company ELKART Systemy Kart Elektronicznych Sp. z o.o was signed. Since that day, ELKART has been continuing its efforts aimed at gaining and strengthening firm position on the electronic cards market.
ELKART offers card personalization services as well as is magnetic and electronic cards supplier. ELKART has been established as a company of Polish Security Printing Works in 1999. Among main customers who make use of Elkart personalization services and certified cards deliveries are banks and other financial institutions.
The company offers tailor-made outsourcing services in the realm of cards—both as far as their deliveries and personalization is concerned. It is possible based on vast competences and expertise we gained during cooperation with leading banks operating on the Polish market.
Elkart is the largest independent payment cards personalization center in Poland that provides services for external financial institutions. We deliver cards from certified vendors and currently our activity is focused on personalizing cards with magnetic stripe technology as well as modern microprocessor, contact and contactless products.
Security Printing Works and meets international payment organizations’ requirements. The company is furnished with technologically advanced equipment and is certified by international payment organizations such as Visa International, MasterCard International as well as authorized by Diners Club.
The fully-fledged personalization lines enable Elkart to handle smart cards and consequently, we have gained the possibility to personalize chip cards compliant to EMV standards.
Company competencies and state of the art security solutions have been confirmed not only by Elkart market position and received payment organization certificates but also by ISO 27001:2005 and ISO9001:2000 certificates—Integrated Quality and Information Security Management System—that are clear confirmation of our procedures and daily practice.
The company is committed to constant technological development as well as professional advance of its employees. With skilled stuff that consists of highly qualified professionals, Elkart is able to face all challenges relating to the company’s vast portfolio of products and services.
During 10 years of business activity, ELKART has delivered to the Polish market over 40 million plastic cards and personalized not less than 25 million cards.
Gemalto Combines EMV, Contactless and Digital Signature for Banco Santander University Program in Spain and Provides National e-ID Cards to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Gemalto announced it is providing Banco Santander with new technology for its well-established university identity card program in Spain. The company is supplying its high-end Optelio cards that offer EMV payment, multi-application identity for digital signature, strong authentication and secure contactless access to facilities. In addition, Gemalto delivers its client strong authentication software solution to enable digital signature applications. These are implemented and supported by Acotec, a Gemalto Value Added Reseller (VAR) in Spain. University Politecnica Catalunya (UPC) is first to rollout this technology in the country. In addition to Spain, Banco Santander is currently running its university identity card program in Latin America, Morocco, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Santander manages several million cards in use at 200 universities, 48 of which are in Spain.
As part of the program, students use their card as a Banco Santander EMV debit card. Spain, and many countries around the world, are migrating payment systems to the more secure EMV standard. Students can also use their card for a wide variety of services and applications. The new digital signature functionality allows students and professors to conveniently sign documents electronically, while at the same time helping universities comply with new laws requiring their use.
The contactless features on the Gemalto card enables secure access to buildings such as libraries, dormitories and gymnasiums. Students also use the card for secure access to the campus electronic networks, to pay in cafeterias, take out books from the library, store grades and personal documents, pay for laundry and photocopies, and for other student expenses. The university card is also used for students to gain access to public transportation in the cities of Burgos, Lerida, Malaga and Santander.
Gemalto also announced it is delivering electronic ID cards to the National Information Center (NIC), the IT entity of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior. The Identification Card-Phase two program extends the country’s initial electronic ID initiative launched in December 2007. As part of the new contract, Gemalto will provide NIC with e-ID cards for the next three years, as well as support and maintenance for the centralized personalization center in Riyadh. The national ID card is mandatory for all citizens above 15 and valid for ten years.
The Saudi Arabia national ID card is a wallet-sized card that embeds a microprocessor containing the cardholder’s digital information such as demographics, facial image and fingerprints. It also features a bar code and an optical stripe to ensure enhanced security to citizens. The national ID card can be used as a travel document that facilitates legitimate travel within all GCC countries. In addition, the e-ID card offers strong authentication to enable citizens to prove their identity. Digital signature is also available through a Public Key Infrastructure application.
In the first phase of the ID program, Gemalto delivered high-end e-ID cards and its Coesys Issuance personalization solution. Gemalto’s Coesys Issuance consists of the combination of software, hardware and integration services to enable NIC to personalize and issue the e-ID cards with the highest level of security. The company also installed the centralized card personalization system operated by NIC in Riyadh.
Gemalto’s references in e-ID programs include notably the following countries: Bahrain, Belgium, Finland, Oman, Portugal, Qatar, Sweden and UAE. In addition, Taiwan has selected Gemalto’s digital security technology for its smart card-based resident card, the electronic Alien Resident Card (ARC).
MasterCard PayPass Adds Ease and Simplicity to More Transactions Worldwide Surpassing 50 Million-Issued Milestone
MasterCard Worldwide announced the issuance of the 50 millionth MasterCard® PayPass™ card or device, as of 4Q 2008, which in the last year more than doubles the number of cards and devices in circulation around the world. This significant PayPass momentum demonstrates not only the demand for simple solutions when it comes to payments, but also the continued secular shift toward electronic payments as validated by recent data that indicates 41 percent of consumers use cash less often today than they did two years ago.
PayPass provides a convenient payment alternative to cash. Consumers no longer need to fumble for cash and coins, swipe a card or even sign a receipt when making purchases of US$25 or below. They just need to tap their PayPass-enabled devices on the readers in the over 141,000 participating merchant locations worldwide, as of the first quarter of 2008, and they are on their way.
“At a time that is ripe with challenges, we are focused on providing simple, valuable payment innovations that drive success for all of our partners,” says Cathleen Conforti, Global PayPass product manager, MasterCard Worldwide. “With PayPass passing this significant 50 million-issued milestone, MasterCard continues to lead the contactless payment market. PayPass is the payment innovation that is displacing cash while making transactions faster, easier and more secure in a way that creates a more efficient system of global commerce for consumers, merchants and financial institutions.”
“After installing MasterCard PayPass readers we immediately began to receive positive feedback from our customers about not having to hand over their payment card to a clerk, and about the increased speed at checkout when payments are made using PayPass,” said John O’Hare, managing director of IT, The Paradies Shops. “As a company we have seen more customers using payment cards as a method of payment verses cash, and as a result our average ticket has gone up, since customers aren’t limited to the cash they have on hand when making purchases,” he said.
The benefits of PayPass to consumers, merchants and financial institutions are now more visible than ever. Based on a 2008 U.S. Consumer Benchmark Study:
• 77 percent of consumers that have a PayPass—enabled card or device use it as their primary form of payment, which demonstrates its ability to bolster relationships for financial institutions with cardholders
• 68 percent of cardholders who have used their PayPass-enabled card report that it enables them to use cash and checks less often
• With PayPass, merchants are growing both their customer base and loyalty as an increasing number of consumers with a PayPass-enabled cared or device—14 percent, up from 8 percent last year—are making purchasing decisions based upon PayPass acceptance
• Currently, the top merchants that have received a visit from a new customer because of their PayPass acceptance include quick-service restaurants (20%), pharmacies (17%) and supermarkets (13%). However, consumers who are aware that their card has contactless functionality are interested in using that feature at a wider range of merchants including department stores (61%), home improvement outlets (46%), movie theaters (42%), bookstores (41%) and sports venues (37%).
• Consumers also expressed interest in using alternative PayPass form factors including tags (42%), key fobs (41%) and mobile phones (33%).
Mühlbauer Opens New Technology Center in the USA
The Mühlbauer group has opened a new technology center in Newport News (USA). The building, which is equipped with the latest technology, includes a sales and service department as well as several demo rooms for the entire production competence and serves as a new basis for all Mühlbauer activities on the American continent.
and personalization of smart cards and passports, as well as solutions for data capture and fully-automatic border control. Moreover, numerous RFID assembly and converting lines as well as equipment for special niches in the area of semiconductor back-end can be demonstrated. In his speech for the official opening of the location, Josef Mühlbauer, CEO and founder of the company, emphasized the importance of the American market for the technology group: “The American continent offers a huge potential for our company due to the intended introduction of new innovative ID documents in many areas. From our new location, we can increasingly tackle the markets.” If business in North and South America develops as expected, further expansion phases in the USA will follow. The available base area of more than 23,000 m² offers enough space for practicing value creation by production and assembly.
Mühlbauer is a leading system partner for the complete technology and know-how transfer for the production of electronic ID documents worldwide. The company is a partner of many governments and authorities and benefits from its experience from more than 200 ID projects. The company has been represented in the USA with sales and service offices since 1992. Thanks to the buildup of the new technology center with demo rooms, Mühlbauer can introduce its solutions in the market more quickly and closer to the customer, and it can benefit from the available growth potential of the entire continent as well as the large interest in Mühlbauer solutions.
Jet Receives Pinnacle Print Awards
Jet received two awards for outstanding achievement in the 2009 Pinnacle Print Awards Competition, a two-state printing competition hosted by the Printing Industry of Illinois and Indiana, the states’ trade association for printing and the graphic arts.
The Pinnacle Print Awards recognizes outstanding craftsmanship in the creation and production of printed materials in Illinois and Indiana. The competition promotes excellence in print communications and rewards companies and individuals who produce the best in print media.
Competing against 282 entries from printing and graphic arts firms from the two states, Jet received “Best in Category,” which is the highest level of awards. The company’s winning submissions are as follows:
• Best of Category
Hard Rock Elite Invite - Invitations - 4 or more colors
• Award of Excellence
Depth-Afex 2009 Calendar - Calendars
SMARTRAC Opens Fifth Production Facility in Thailand and Announces New Customer Support Service in Latin America
SMARTRAC N.V. has opened its fifth production facility in Thailand. The new factory in Ayutthaya, near Bangkok, provides additional space for further growth and expansion.
The supplementary building will be used for the newly created business unit “Industry & Logistics,” the optimization of the logistics area, and it will enable the expansion of the R&D department.
As more and more industries make use of RFID applications to gain in efficiency and ease asset tracking, the demand for large volumes of premium RFID inlays constantly rises. The new factory enables SMARTRAC to react quickly to upcoming demands for further capacities as well as new products.
Since starting mass production of RFID inlays in 2001, SMARTRAC has continuously expanded its production facilities, technology base, product portfolio, research & development capacities and sales force. With the newly opened factory in Ayutthaya, the company maintains a network of 11 production facilities on four continents.
“Thailand is for us one of the best places in the world to conduct our business,” says Manfred Rietzler, chief technology officer of SMARTRAC. “In addition to finding highly skilled employees, the favorable preconditions in terms of infrastructure and conditions have induced us to enlarge our manufacturing base in Ayutthaya. The additional capacity will enable us to serve short-term volume orders even better.”
Latin America is seen as one of the regional markets with the largest RFID growth potential. In order to support this development, SMARTRAC is offering a new service to the LATAM market. A designated and structured Customer Project Team located in the company’s subsidiary in Manaus, in the Amazon region, will provide maximum possible guidance to card manufacturers to facilitate migration from magnetic stripe cards to contactless technology.
In collaboration with the customer, the SMARTRAC team will define the necessary equipment, go through production and give a helping hand to start the production of RFID cards. This new unit has been set up due to the insight that there is still a lot of uncertainty in the industry when it comes to working with the new technology. Therefore, SMARTRAC considers this kind of special support as an investment in future business.
The responsible manager of the project team is Arivaldo Mathias, holding more than 25 years experience in the card industry. The team started their activities in February 2009. Currently, one of the main topics in Latin-America is the upcoming demand for polycarbonate products. As almost no card manufacturer in the region has previous experience in utilizing this durable substrate, SMARTRAC is able to provide expert advice from its extensive manufacturing experience.
Joerg Stefan Wittkowski, responsible for the SMARTRAC operations in Brazil and the sales team in Latin America says “This service makes the difference between low cost RFID component suppliers and SMARTRAC. We are not just focused on selling SMARTRAC products. The target is to create a stable win-win relationship with our customers.”
The SMARTRAC team will be pleased to support you in case your factory is facing technical problems or if you are looking for a different product. Furthermore, the company’s global R&D team, is ready to assist with customer specific inquiries. In LATAM it is more than mandatory to innovate and lead technological developments, as the regional industry is still a follower from a global perspective.
Taiwan Name Plate Wins Contract with National Australia Bank
Taiwan Name Plate Co., Ltd. (TNP) signed a contract with National Australia Bank (NAB) for the supply of Plastic Cards for Visa, MasterCard and American Express and ATM cards. The contract was officially signed in October 2008 by NAB Head of Procurement, Gary Eden and TNP Head of Card Department, Rufino Lim.
This is the first partnership between NAB and TNP and the first batch of cards are expected to be delivered in February 2009.
NAB is one of the top four card issuing banks in Australia and one of the top 50 banks in the world by market capitalization.
TNP is the largest Visa and MasterCard card manufacturer in Taiwan with over 100 million cards shipped worldwide. TNP developed its own antenna production technology which is the basis for production of dual interface and contactless cards. Through this technology, TNP has produced and delivered over three million dual interface and contactless (Mifare) cards in the last two years.
TNP is also certified ISO9001, ISO14001, ISO27001 and MasterCard’s CQM.
This partnership with NAB will expand the market area covered by TNP which now totals over 12 countries.
Thomas Greg & Sons Inaugurates Card Plant in India
In February, Thomas Greg & Sons in association with Manipal Press Limited and Chan Wanich Security Printers, inaugurated MCT Card & Technology Pvt. Ltd, a card manufacturing plant in Manipal, India. In the following weeks, they will receive the production licenses for Visa and MasterCard. Currently MCT Cards & Technology Pvt. Ltd. is in the capacity of producing credit and debit cards, identification documents and intelligent cards.
QUATRO Card Technology Expands Manufacturing Operations
QUATRO Card Technology announced the major expansion of its manufacturing operations in Canada. QUATRO has just settled into a state of the art, stand alone, 45,000 sq ft. secure facility that will allow them to serve not only the local Canadian market but International markets as well.
The new facility will allow QUATRO to be a true “all under one roof” company. QUATRO is now able to offer complete pre-press and design, support material print production, paper and plastic card manufacturing, card packaging and assembly, pick and pack distribution and much more.
VCT Installs Mitsubishi Diamond 3000TP
Mitsubishi Lithographic Presses announced Versatile Card Technology, Inc. (VCT) has completed the installation of a 10-color Diamond 3000TP Tandem Perfector. In operation at VCT’s headquarters in Downers Grove, Ill., the 40-inch perfecting press with ultraviolet coating capabilities will enable the company to meet its clients’ requirements for sophisticated and graphically innovative plastic cards.
Established in 1986, VCT is a globally recognized leader in plastic card manufacturing. Part of the Vmark Network of Direct Marketing Companies, VCT produces cards for every application and offers complete fulfillment services and turnkey solutions.