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Europay Rolls Out Unique Quality Certification Scheme for Smart Cards
First CQM Certificates Awarded to Gemplus and STMicroelectronics
Waterloo, Belgium, 31 May – Europay International – Europe’s leading payment association -today announced the introduction of a unique Certification scheme dedicated to assessing the quality of payment cards and card vendors.
This new Card Quality Management scheme (CQM) combines Europay’s expertise in payment cards quality control with the know-how required to review the manufacturing and card embedding quality of Integrated Circuits (IC).
The first two CQM certificates have been issued to STMicroelectronics (France) and Gemplus (France & UK), recognising the quality of their products and services: STMicroelectronics for its smart card chip and Gemplus for the cards produced with these chips. By working together, they have formed a supply chain resulting in the production of high quality cards. This supply chain starts with the process of forming the card body and the IC, to the final shipment of these IC cards.
Europay has worked with the smart card industry for over three years to establish this quality assessment scheme, which extensively focuses on the features of IC manufacturing, module manufacturing and card embedding, and is based on the ISO9000 and QS9000 standards.
The assessment methodology uses a hierarchical qualification technique, based on the certification of individual sites, services and information systems. This technique allows individual future approvals of different products, which are constructed through different supply chains.
“The CQM scheme offers excellent benefits to the smart card industry, thanks to its state-of-the-art evaluation methodology,” said Arnaud du Chéné, Manager Smart Card Implementation at Europay International. “We are now in a position to accurately assess the overall quality of ICs, Modules and Card production facilities while minimising the impact on the industry in terms of cost and time-to-market,” he concluded.
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Mr. Andreas Raschmeier, Financial Transactions Director, Smart Card Division at STMicroelectronics added, “STMicroelectronics is very proud to be the first chip supplier certified by Europay through the CQM system. This certificate demonstrates our level of excellence in quality and security and our commitment to Europay and MasterCard’s EMV chip migration programme.”
"Gemplus is proud to be involved in a project of this dimension. In particular, this certificate confirms our leading position as a smart card solution provider for financial institutions," commented Yannick Abad, Director for Quality and Continuous Improvement at Gemplus.
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About Europay International
Europay International, headquartered in Waterloo, Belgium, is Europe’s leading payments organisation, dedicated to providing a tailored product range and support services to its more than 9,000 Member banks. At present, over 278.5 million cards (Eurocard-MasterCard, Maestro, Cirrus and eurocheque) provide European and global debit and credit card services, and offer cash access to Europe's largest network of more than 296,000 ATMs in 43 countries. Through its alliance with MasterCard International, over 580,000 ATMs and more than 21 million retail locations worldwide accept Europay products. Europay’s website at www.europay.com gives a detailed view on the company’s products and services and shows how Europay offers its Member banks both support and leadership on issues including virtual commerce, chip technology, security & risk management, and the advent of the euro.
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About STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics is the world’s third largest independent semiconductor company. The company shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, on Euronext Paris and on the Milan Stock Exchange. STMicroelectronics designs, develops, manufactures and markets a broad range of semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) and discrete devices used in a wide variety of microelectronic applications, including telecommunications systems, computer systems, consumer products, automotive products and industrial automation and control systems. In 2000, the Company’s net revenues were $7,813.2 million and net earnings were $1,452.1 million. Further information on ST can be found at www.st.com.
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About Gemplus
GEMPLUS: the world's leading smart card solutions provider
Since its creation in 1988, Gemplus International S.A.(Euronext: Sicovam 5768 and NASDAQ:GEMP) has driven the global marketing and deployment of smart card-based applications for telecommunications, financial services and e-business security.
According to the most recent third party research, Gemplus leads the industry with 35% market share by volume in memory and micro-processor cards (Gartner Dataquest, 2000)
Gemplus is instrumental throughout the value chain - chip design, card management systems, software development, and consulting - delivering integrated custom-made solutions for the security, personalization and privacy management needs of clients and partners worldwide.
Gemplus technology has played a defining role in the development of wireless telephony since the introduction of SIM cards into the GSM standard in 1990. For more than a decade, Gemplus has pioneered applications that enable network operators around the world to answer the changing needs of their customers. Gemplus was first to market with a 3G card and supplies a product range compliant with new and emerging transmission standards - 2.5G, 3G.
In 2000, revenue was 1.205 BE, up 57% from the previous year's 767ME. Net income was 99 ME. Gemplus employs more than 7800 people in 37 countries worldwide.
Since 11 December 2000, Gemplus shares have been trading on Euronext Paris S.A. First Market and on Nasdaq in the form of ADSs.
Gemplus: www.gemplus.com
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Contacts
Gemplus, Marielle Bricman
tel: 33 4 42 36 55 96
email: marielle.bricman@gemplus.com
©2001 Gemplus All rights reserved. Gemplus,
the Gemplus logo and GemSense are trademarks and service marks of Gemplus
S.A. and are registered in certain countries. All other trademarks and
service marks, whether registered or not in specific countries, are the
property of their respective owners.
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