The new cards are based on the Java Card 2.1specifications drawn up by Sun Microsystemsand approved by the international ETSItelecommunications authority. The threecompanies say that a common standard based onJava Card technology provides completeinteroperability but still enables individualoperators to develop their own specific productsand services. The common standard is beingmade available to the SIMalliance of SIM cardsuppliers.

Contact: Tim Cawsey at Gemplus WirelessCommunications, Tel: +33 4 42 36 46 56,e-mail: Tim.Cawsey@gemplus.com

Stephanie de Labriolle at Oberthur Card Systems,Tel: +33 1 41 25 28 42,e-mail: s.delabriolle@oberthurcs.com

Emmanuelle Saby at Schlumberger Test &Transactions, Tel: +33 1 47 46 71 04, e-mail: Saby@montrouge.tt.slb.com

French firm wins awardfor image transfer A system for transmitting images to mobilephones, developed by Ofye, a French start-upcompany, won the first prize in the companysection of the SIMagine competition forinnovative mobile phone applications,awarded at this spring’s GSM Congress inCannes.

Using the Ofye application, a mobile phoneuser can handle images via their SIM card. Thiswould enable a user, for example, to receivepersonalised information (such as a specialpromotions) from their operator in the form ofimages; the usual menus could also be replacedwith sets of images or icons; and phone userscould send electronic post cards to friends orinstal screen savers.

In the Education section, the first prize wasawarded to the University of the Balearic Islandsfor a system allowing a directory to be carriedboth on the user’s mobile phone and replicatedon their PC.

The Cegetel prize was awarded to the teamfrom the Eurecom Institute, based in Sophia-Antipolis, France, for an application enablingpersonalized advertisement messages to be addeddirectly to the list of standard menus, to suit thesubscriber’s profile.

The Optimus prize was awarded toIndonesian start-up company INTI. Thiscompany has developed an application forphone subscribers caught up in an emergency,such as a car accident. If sufficiently unhurt, theuser will press a key on their phone to transmit amessage direct to their insurer. This alerts the

insurer to arrange for a breakdown mechanic, areplacement vehicle and so on to be sent to thescene.

The Swisscom prize was awarded to Turkishstart-up, Moya. The compnay’s Mylistapplication enables the subscriber to filter allincoming calls or messages. This would beparticularly useful in meetings - to authorise callsfrom one designated person, or to send apersonalized wait-message to pre-selected callers.

The Orange prize was awarded to Spanishstart-up WhatEverNet for a multi-playerinteractive role-playing game.

The Innovation prize was awarded to Russianstart-up Novasoft for a GSM home automationapplication. With this application, a subscribercan control, start or stop his or her videorecorder, washing machine, heating - providedthat these devices are connected to the Internet.

The M-commerce prize was awarded to theteam from the University of Malaga for a secureticketing application. This enables subscribers touse their mobile phone to purchase encryptedelectronic tickets for transport, concerts and soon. When the tickets have been received, theymust then be validated by the seller’s mobilephone.

The Java prize was awarded to Japanese start-up Nettime for an i.mode application. The B2B(business to business) prize was awarded toPolish start-up Mobile IT for a mobile phone

agenda application. This application enablesusers to keep their own personal diary on theirphone- and also on their PC.

The SIMagine competition was organised byBull CP8, Sun Microsystems, STMicroelectronicsand Europay International. The applications wererequired to be developed in Java and integratedinto SIM cards.

Contact: Catherine Vincent at Bull CP8, Tel: +33 1 39 66 42 63, e-mail: Catherine.Vincent@bull.net

NBS package for newentrants to chip marketNBS Technologies, the Canadian-basedsupplier of smart card personalisationequipment and systems, has launched a Visa-orientated entry-level package for banks andother new chip card issuers.

Marketed as the Visa Smart PersonalisationProcess, the new NBS system includes ahardware security module, personalisationsoftware and a desk-top system; all elements runin Windows.

Visa Smart is the Visa programme designed toprovide card issuers and acceptors withequipment at competitive prices.

7Card Technology Today April 2001

news

• The regional government of Valencia, Spain(Generalitat Valencia) is working withBaltimore Technologies to introduce a digitalcertificate system that will enable citizens tocommunicate securely with official offices andagencies. The first phase will be for governmentemployees. The second phase will be for thegeneral public. We understand that a smartcard-based system for storing the certificates isone of the schemes under consideration.

• Hitachi Cable is to begin the manufacture ofcontactless smart cards. Initial plans are toproduce 50,000 smart cards and 50,000 coin-shaped tags a month. The products will run on125KHz frequency and operate at a distance ofup to 50cms from reader terminals.

• ID Data, the UK-based smart card manu-facturer, has launched its IDDEAS (ID DataDirect Easy Application System) system forSIM mobile phone cards. Running on ‘flash’silicon memory chips, IDDEAS enables cardissuers to choose which applications to add tothe card without needing to define specificmemory segments. ID Data embeds chipssupplied by Hitachi, Samsung and Emosyn.

• Infineon Technologies has developed a 16-bit smart card micro-processor for the mobilephone market. The SLE66C640P chip carries64KB of EEPROM memory and can act as aSIM card in devices using either the EuropeanGSM, or the emerging international UMTS,wireless system. The new controller shouldenable operators to provide mobile bankingand m-commerce facilities, large numbers ofpre-set dialling numbers and access toentertainment and information services.Infineon says that the SLE66C640P issuitable for the transition to 3G technology.

• Toppan Printing of Japan is to producesmart cards carrying Microsoft’s operatingsystem, Windows for Smart Cards. Thisfollows the move in late 2000 by rival DaiNippon Printing to use Microsoft smart cardtechnology. Dai Nippon is also to offer theBelgium-developed Rijndael encryptionsystem on its smart cards.

• The Kookmin Card Company of Korea hasdeveloped cards that carry both Mondexelectronic cash and M/Chip (MasterCard’scredit/debit application). The company is toissue the first tranche of these Kookmin TradePass Cards to several thousand of its employeesand vendors. More than 15,000 merchants inSeoul have signed up to process the new cardsthrough their outlets. Cardholders can also usethe cards – initially only as credit cards -overseas.

in brief

mobile phones

card personalisation

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Issuers and personalisation bureaus canupgrade from NBS’ Visa Smart package to theNBS Horizon high speed system (personalisingcards at a rate of 1200 an hour) when they wantto move to in-line, high-volume production.The Horizon system will handle GSM as well asfinancial cards.

Another new product from NBS is Asure ID .This is intended to send personal data andimages, two critical elements in ID cardproduction, securely across the Internet forprinting at a remote site.

Contact: Philip Barton at NBS Technologies, Tel: +44 1932 351531, e-mail: philip.barton@nbstech.co.uk

Datakey to concentrateon smart cardsUS security specialist Datakey is to wind upits Electronics Products (EP) business andwill invest all its resources in developingsmart cards for network access and other highsecurity applications. Electronic Products,Datakey’s original business, was built on thesupply of portable memory devices packagedin keys and plastic tokens.

Smart card growthThe company has just completed a US$4.8million private placement of common stock tofinance the growth of the company’s smart cardbusiness, known as the Information SecuritySolutions (ISS). Carl Boecher, President andCEO of Datakey, said: “With ISS revenues nowrepresenting more than one-half our totalbusiness, we are well positioned to capitalise onthe high-growth global market for smart card-based information security products and systems.We believe we have the best smart card systems forPublic Key Infrastructure (PKI) in the market.”

The strength of the Information Securitybusiness is shown, said Mr Boecher, by its recentgrowth in revenues; these have now exceeded EPrevenues for the past two quarters. Unless apurchaser can be found for the ElectronicProducts business, the unit will be wound up.The financial results for the year 2000 reflect theEP business unit as a discontinued operation andthe prior year results have been restated forcomparative purposes.

RevenuesDatakey turned in revenue from continuingoperations for the fourth quarter of 2000amounting to US$1.4 million. This was anincrease of 54% from US$0.9 million for thesame period last year and up 62% from the thirdquarter of 2000.

Net loss from continuing operations for thequarter was US$539,000, or US$0.07 per share,compared to a net loss of US$474,000, orUS$0.09 per share, in the year-earlier period.

Taking the year as a whole, revenue fromcontinuing operations in 2000 increased by 174% to US$3.6 million from US$1.3 million in1999. Net loss from continuing operations forthe year was US$2,953,000, or $0.37 per share,compared to $2,891,000, or $0.80 per share, in1999.

OrdersLooking to the future, Mr. Boecher said thatorders for PKI products and licenses wereaccelerating at triple digit rates. “In the fourthquarter, we booked orders for 99,000 ‘seats’ andadded 19 new pilots,” he said. “This compareswith just 9 new pilots in the fourth quarter of1999. We also converted 4 pilot programmes toproduction status during the quarter, bringing thetotal to 32.” Among Datakey’s new customers aretwo European banks; the company has beenreluctant to state just which institutions these are.

However, the company believes that losses willcontinue at least through the first half of 2001,with a current projected annual loss for 2001ranging from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000. Thecompany’s ability to achieve profitabilitydepends on significantly increasing revenue fromthe sale and/or licensing of its informationsecurity products. Margins on licences are,apparently, better than margins in product sales.

Federal contracts Datakey is now emerging as a major player in theUS smart card industry. The company recentlyprovided a demonstration of electronic signaturetechnology to members of the House ofRepresentatives Commerce Committee.

Several Federal agencies and departments(including the Department of Energy and theBureau of Labor Statistics) are to use Datakeysmart card systems for employee access tonetworks and and buildings.

And the international WISeKey consortium isto use Datakey technology for the Global PKIInitiative; this programme aims to bring secureelectronic signatures and messaging to lessdeveloped countries.

Contact: Colleen Kulhanek at Datakey,Tel: +1 952-808-2361, e-mail: marketing@datakey.com

Royal Bank of Scotlandchooses Dione terminalsRoyal Bank of Scotland Group (RBSG) is topurchase some 60,000 point-of-sale terminals

from the Dione group, for installation on thesites of its merchant customers. Dione is theUK-based company that supplies the Bootschain of chemists’ stores with terminals toprocess the 12 million Advantage loyaltycards held by Boots’ customers.

The Dione Xchequer devices now going intostores run by RBSG merchant customers willprocess both magnetic stripe and smart cards.Certified to EMV standards for chip paymentcards, the terminals will be placed in thepremises of new businesses that the bank signsup, as well as at the sites of existing merchantcustomers where smart card terminals have notyet been installed. RBSG (which now includesthe former NatWest Bank) claims to supply 40%of the merchant ‘acquirer’ market with electronicpayment systems. The order from Dione is a keyelement in the banking group’s plan formigration to smart card technology.

In addition to the supply of terminals, Dionehas worked with NCR, another RBSG supplier,on developing a terminal management system.NCR provides the bank with logistics,infrastructure, training and help desk support.Dione provides the server-based system thatcontrols the allocation and installation ofterminals, fault identification and diagnostics.

GolfSport is now becoming a new market for Dione’sXchequer terminals. Scottish Golf – apartnership between The Scottish Golf Union,The Scottish Ladies Golfing Association andScotland Online – is to instal 1,000 terminalsenabling golfers to update their handicaps, heldon smart cards, at golf clubs throughoutScotland. The terminals will have a built-inmodem to transmit new information fromhandicap-qualifying competitions at the end ofthe day to a centralised server operated byScotland Online. The scheme has been developedby the Scotcomms Technology Group.

Contact: Ellena Benson at Dione, Tel: +44 1494 429600,e-mail: info@dionecorp.com

First Data drives intoEuropean marketIn a move to accelerate its expansion into theEuropean electronic payments market, and todraw media and public attention to itspresence, First Data Corporation of the UShas changed the trading name of its UKsubsidiary FDR Limited to First DataEurope.

First Data Corporation supplies and handlescard issuing and transaction processing services

8Card Technology Today April 2001

news

industry

terminals

card processing

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