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Gemplus storms ahead in banking as EMV takes off globally

40 million EMV smart cards to be delivered to the UK in the next 2 years

Cartes 2003, Paris, 18 November 2003 -- Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 – GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), the world’s leading provider of smart card solutions, today announces that it has won businesses to deliver 40 million EMV cards within the next 2 years to the UK market. These confirm the success of Gemplus’ aggressive strategy to lead the banking and financial sector, and position Gemplus as the second largest smart card supplier in the UK, and the fastest growing card vendor in the smart banking market.

In an announcement made earlier this month, Gemplus will provide one of the biggest debit card issuers in the UK, Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) - among other UK banks - with smart cards to replace the magnetic stripe system on the banks' debit cards. The UK, representing the biggest market for EMV, will have an estimated 120 million payment cards upgraded to EMV standards by 2005.

“The UK market is incredibly important not just because it is the largest EMV market, but also in terms of its maturity. Our success in the UK and our incomparable worldwide presence puts us in a strong position to help our customers in other parts of the world to embark on EMV.” says Gilles Michel, Executive Vice-President of Gemplus’ Financial & Security Services Business Unit.

On top of the EMV successes in the UK, Gemplus continues to work with major customers worldwide as illustrated by two other contract wins this month: it will be supplying 400,000 Java Card™ to Banco do Brasil, Latin America's first bank to roll out EMV. Gemplus and its partner Toppan Printing Co. will also deliver multi-application EMV cards to JCB, one of the international credit card brands and Japan's largest card issuer.

As an illustration of its worldwide presence, Gemplus supplied products and services to more than 460 financial institutions in over 67 countries in 2002. Most recently, Gemplus also signed contracts with leading banks of Eastern Europe, including Komercni Banka & eBanka in Czech Republic, PBZ bank in Croatia and K&H bank in Hungary.

All these contracts mark a phenomenal year in 2003 for Gemplus, during which it has signed record numbers of EMV contracts.

About Gemplus
Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP) is the world’s leading player in the smart card industry in both revenue and total shipments (source 2002: Gartner-Dataquest, Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor.) It has the largest R&D team, unrivalled experience, and an outstanding track record of technological innovation.
Gemplus helps its clients offer an exceptional range of portable, personalized solutions that bring security and convenience to people's lives. These include Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking, Retail, Transport, Identity, WLAN, Pay-TV, e-government, access control, and a wealth of other applications.
Gemplus' revenue in 2002 was 787 million Euros.
www.gemplus.com


About Halifax Bank of Scotland
Formed in September 2001 following the merger of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, HBOS has assets of over £380 billion and has over 25 million customers. It is the UK’s largest mortgage, saving and new credit card provider and for the last few years has been at the forefront of the UK banking revolution. With over 60,000 staff and a relationship with two out of every households in the UK, it was recently voted Europe’s best performing company.”

Contact details

Julian Hirst
Gemplus FSS PR
Tel: +33 (0)442364198
Mobile: +33 (0) 685948414
Julian.hirst@gemplus.com

Vanessa Clarke
Edelman PR
Tel: +44 (0)20 7344 1349
Mobile : +44 (0) 7730 989698
vanessa.clarke@edelman.com

©2003 Gemplus. All rights reserved. Gemplus and the Gemplus logo are trademarks and service marks of Gemplus 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.

Some of the statements contained in this release constitute forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our or our industry's actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activities, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ materially. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those estimated by the forward-looking statements contained in this release include, but are not limited to: trends in wireless communication and mobile commerce markets; our ability to develop new technology, and the effects of competing technologies developed and expected intense competition generally in our main markets; profitability of our expansion strategy; challenges to or loss of our intellectual property rights; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships in our major businesses; our ability to develop and take advantage of new software and services; and the effect of future acquisitions and investments on our share price. Moreover, neither we nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this release speak only as of this release. We are under no duty to update any of the forward-looking statements after this date to conform such statements to actual results or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated results.