Mexico’s Banco Azteca partners with Gemplus for its credit card rollout

Bank’s biometric smart payment cards are evidence of strong progress in Latin American market

Luxembourg, 12 July 2005 – Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 – GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), the world’s leading provider of smart card solutions, has been selected to supply EMV¹ cards to Mexican bank Banco Azteca. The cards will store customers’ photographs and biometric data, such as finger prints, for identification purposes in the branches.

Under the terms of the contract, Gemplus will be the primary supplier and provide smart payment microprocessor cards, with the biometric technology being supplied by a Banco Azteca partner. Card personalization will be performed at Gemplus’ Cuernavaca facilities in Mexico.

Banco Azteca’s Visa cards are the first of the group’s cards to migrate to EMV in order to meet the impending January 2006 liability shift date set by the payment associations.

Owned by Grupo Elektra, Latin America’s largest speciality retailer and Mexico’s leading consumer finance company, Banco Azteca was launched in 2002, opening 815 branches in 250 Mexican cities. Now one of Mexico's five largest banks in terms of branches, it targets the ‘unbanked’ segment of the country’s population. This accounts for approximately 70% and is made up of a demographic that is overlooked by traditional banks. The bank’s branches are located inside Grupo Elektra stores and other retail channels.

“Working closely with Gemplus, we have been able to personalize and deliver our new smart payment cards to our customers within a short time-frame,” said Gerardo Ponce de León, Director of Products, Banco Azteca. “Gemplus’ local industrial capabilities, global experience and its ongoing consultancy services have supported us through the different phases of EMV migration.”

“The bank is setting a regional precedent in terms of its target market and the implementation of biometrics on its cards," commented Philippe David, Vice-President Business Development, Financial Services at Gemplus. “Working with innovative market players like Banco Azteca helps us to further develop our understanding of regional market dynamics, enabling us to offer local banks tailored solutions and services.”

Gemplus already supplies smart card solutions to numerous other banks in the Central and Latin American region. With this project the company confirms its continuing growth in this dynamic market.

¹ EMV is a smart card payment standard that was created in 1996 by Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV), guaranteeing worldwide interoperability and security for payment. Benefiting card issuers, acquirers and cardholders, EMV is essential in the reduction of fraud and also provides opportunities for financial institutions to differentiate new services for cardholders.

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: Gartner-Dataquest (2005), Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor.). It has sold over 5 billion smart cards.

With security at its core, and 2400 patents and patent applications produced by its innovative R&D team, Gemplus delivers a wide range of portable, personalized solutions in areas including Identity, Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking, Retail, Transport, Healthcare, WLAN, Pay-TV, e-government, and access control.

Gemplus' revenue in 2004 was 865 million Euros.
www.gemplus.com

For more information:
Steve Lacourt
Gemplus Financial Services Business Unit
Tel: +32 (0) 2 711 48 20
Fax: +32 (0) 2 725 14 60
Email: steve.lacourt@gemplus.com
 

Emma Williamson
Edelman
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7344 1253
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7344 1222
Email: emma.williamson@edelman.com
 

©2005 Gemplus. All rights reserved. Gemplus, the Gemplus logo, and SafesITe 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.

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.