 Gemplus chosen by Commonwealth Bank of Australia for first MasterCard PayPass pilot
CBA cardholders to use the MasterCard-approved product, GemInstant
LUXEMBURG, May 18, 2006 – Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 –
GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), a world leading provider of secure card-based solutions,
announces its involvement in Australia’s first MasterCard PayPass pilot program,
where Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CBA) cardholders will simply place their
card in front of the terminal to make a payment.
The six-month trial will be rolled out in New South Wales, with the first phase involving
33,000 CBA cardholders who will be able to use their MasterCard PayPass cards at more than
150 participating merchants. Shops include fast food restaurants and convenience stores for
payments under A$35. Cardholders will not need to enter a PIN or sign a receipt,
resulting in faster transaction times and therefore reducing queuing time for customers
at the store and improving the service.
When the card is placed before the reader, the reader beeps to let the cardholder know
that the card has been read and payment has been made. The security remains as high as
for a traditional credit card.
Gemplus provided the GemInstant cards for this project. GemInstant is a range of
contactless payment solutions already tried and tested in other parts of the world.
“We knew that Gemplus’s expertise in contactless technology goes back over 10 years
and it has real international coverage when it comes to contactless payment” said Mr
Scott Henricks, General Manager, Consumer Financing & Relationship Marketing, Retail
Banking Services Commonwealth Bank.
Gemplus has been present in the Australian market for many years, which was reinforced
in 2000 by setting up a local joint venture, LM Gemplus Pty Ltd. Since then, the company
has established successful long term relationships with its clients and continues to
invest in local technical support and solutions tailored for the Australian environment.
This local presence was a factor in their selection by CBA for this project.
“Contactless payment is becoming an international trend and innovative banks such as
CBA want to be the first to provide their customers with this convenient way to pay”
commented Philippe David, Vice President, Business Development, Financial Services,
Gemplus. “We are showing once again our commitment to innovative projects by being
involved in Australia’s first MasterCard PayPass pilot after successful implementations
in America, Europe and Asia”.
* A$35 is equivalent to US$25.
About Gemplus
Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP) is a
world leading player in the secure card industry in both revenue and total
shipments (source: Gartner-Dataquest 2005, Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor).
It has sold billions of smart cards and other secure cards.
Gemplus delivers a wide range of portable, personalized solutions in areas
including Identity, Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking,
Retail, Transport, Healthcare, WiFi, Pay-TV,
e-government, and access control.
Gemplus' revenue in 2005 was 939 million Euros.
www.gemplus.com
For more information:
Marta Bordonada
Gemplus
Tel: +33 (0) 4 4236 4179
e-mail: marta.bordonada@gemplus.com
Victoria Aitken
Edelman PR Agency
Tel: +44 (0)20 7344 1258
Email: victoria.aitken@edelman.com
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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
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differ materially. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the
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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
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date to conform such statements to actual results or to reflect the occurrence of
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