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Ingenico Fortronic doubles sales in first half 2000
News Acquirer Module – This runs at the site of the bank acquiring the transaction. It takes the payment request, performs the payment and confirms to the consumer and to the merchant that the transaction has been successfully completed. Contact: Marina De Moerlooze at Banksys, Tel: +32 2 727 6822, e-mail: [email protected]
City cards
Schlumberger opens first Brazilian plant Schlumberger is opening its first South American card production plant, in Curitiba, Brazil, where it has already issued smart cards to 30,000 residents. Located in Pinhais, in the metropolitan region of Curitiba, the Schlumberger plant has received an initial investment of US$5 million. The plant has been installed in the existing factory owned by Cardtech, in which Schlumberger purchased an 80% equity stake in 1999. The plant has been renovated to meet the security and technology standards for smart cards demanded by Visa and MasterCard. It will produce both memory and microprocessor cards. “Smart cards will grow exponentially from the current base of 160 million cards in use in Brazil today, as new applications come on stream,” says Uwe Ludke, sales director for Schlumberger in Brazil. “The banking sector alone will grow 20% per year in the short term.” Overall, Schlumberger sees Brazil as a very promising market. “Multinational investments are transforming the country into a development and production centre for high-tech products, such as mobile phones and PCs, and creating a significant opportunity for the use of smart cards, equipped with programmable microprocessor chips.” The practical application of Schlumberger’s approach can be seen in the city of Curitiba itself, where residents and government employees are using the dual interface – contact and contactless - Schlumberger Easyflex City Card, for ID, for banking, as a payment card and for transport ticketing. The City card was first introduced in Curitiba at the end of 1997. At that time, 5,000 local government employees were issued with smart cards to be used as their professional ID card, and for
use in selected shops and supermarkets. (A local bank gives city employees preferential rates on financial services and on credit.) Some 30,000 people now use the City card and an additional 180,000 employees of the state government are due to be issued with the cards in the near future. The City card will be accepted as a means of access to public transport at 2,500 points by mid2001. Passengers who do not possess the full City card (with its ID function) will be able to buy smart card tickets at news kiosks and and at terminals. Initially there will be some 500,000 such cards and this number will grow during the transition from the present paper tickets to smart card tickets. Curitiba’s population is 1.5 million. Further applications are promised, says Uwe Ludke. Patients at county health offices will use the card to store the data that results from examinations and consultations. Parking applications will be added, as well as benefits such as meal tickets. Several projects to add new services to the card, including its use in petrol stations and restaurants, are under analysis. The plant in Curitiba is Schlumberger’s eleventh smart card facility worldwide; the company now manufactures chip cards in France, at other sites in Europe, and in North America, Latin America and Asia. Contact: Dirk Hinze at Schlumberger Test and Transactions, Tel: +33 1 47 46 79 50, e-mail; [email protected]
Point of sale terminals
Ingenico Fortronic doubles sales in first half 2000 Ingenico Fortronic, the Scottish-based manufacturer of point-of-sale payment terminals, has achieved revenues in excess of £10 million in the first half of the year 2000. Currently employing 200 people in the UK (140 of them in Scotland) Ingenico Fortronic is embarking on a major recruitment drive to accelerate new product development and expand into new markets. The company plans to increase its engineering team by more than 20% and will also be adding to software development, sales and marketing staff. As part of its continued growth strategy, Ingenico Fortronic has invested GBP 400,000 in the redevelopment of its UK head office in Dalgety Bay,
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News Dunfermline. The company is allowing space for up to 50 new staff at the site. Ingenico Fortronic reports strong sales of its flagship Eclipse TT41 and its Elite payment terminals. The Eclipse TT41 is an in-store countertop terminal; the Elite range can be configured as as a counter-top, as a portable or as a mobile terminal. Both can handle EMV debit/credit smart cards. Indeed the company looks set to benefit from the UK banks’ roll-out of EMV smart cards. Ingenico Fortronic already has 100,000 terminals installed in the UK. Its client list includes major clearing banks – Barclays, NatWest, HSBC, Bank of Scotland, Girobank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank, Northern Bank and Bank of Ireland, as well as American Express. Petrol retailers are also clients for forecourt payment terminals – including supermarket sites operated by Tesco and Asda. Ingenico Fortronic was formed in February 1999 following the acquisition by the French-based Ingenico group of the payment terminals business of De La Rue. In its pre-De La Rue incarnation as Fortronic, the company was a world pioneer in the development of smart card-based EFTPoS terminals. Contact: Graham Wright at Ingenico Fortronic, Tel: +44 131 459 8800, e-mail: [email protected]
Health cards
Slovenia to add new functions to patient cards The government of Slovenia is to introduce a second phase of its National Health Insurance Card programme, by upgrading the smart cards held by patients and by physicians and other primary care providers. The programme is built round two cards supplied by Gemplus – the Health Insurance Card (HIC) for the insured population and the Health Professional Card (HPC). In the second phase of the programme, prescriptions supplied, organ donor status and emergency medical data will be added to the HIC. In addition, the card will store URL addresses linking the card to sites on hospital databases where a patient’s X-rays, laboratory reports and other medical records may be held. The HIC currently identifies the cardholder,
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stores insurance information, designates the cardholder’s primary care physician and enables insurance claims to be submitted electronically. Also in Phase Two, a cryptoprocessor is to be added to the Health Professional Card; this will enable health care professionals to use Public Key technology to secure the exchange of data. The cards will hold digital certificates and be equipped with a digital signature function. The HPC currently identifies the primary care provider, stores their professional credentials and determines their read/write access to patient files and data held on the patient’s HIC. The Slovenian National Health Insurance Card system covers private health care and insurance arrangements as well as state-run facilities. Slovenia has spent US$25 million, over five years, on the first phase of the health card programme, for a population of two million people. Gemplus points out that this has cost just US$2.50 per head per year. Contact: Claire Montenay at Gemplus, Tel: +33 4 42 36 50 00, e-mail: [email protected]
Mass transit
Transit products prove popular in card awards Mass transit products are prominent among the applications submitted for the annual Sesames awards at this year’s Cartes 2000 in Paris. New applications from Gemplus and from ASK are aimed at the occasional traveller. From the Proton World/Motorola camp comes an open electronic purse with a built-in ticketing application, aimed at the regular commuter. Topcard Monetique has produced a portable contactless card reader. Meanwhile Unicom Consulting of Finland offers a management system that makes it easy for transport operators and city administrations to share cards and handles the clearing of transactions. Cardholders can check on the status of their applications by mobile phone or PC (through the Internet). Gemplus has launched a disposable contactless ticket for the occasional user of ski lifts and mass transit systems. The Multi-trip Ticket is a low cost smart card that uses a streamlined manufacturing process to manufacture wireless antennae, embed chips and laminate the cards. The company promises that the price will be about half that of
City cards
Schlumberger opens first Brazilian plant Schlumberger is opening its first South American card production plant, in Curitiba, Brazil, where it has already issued smart cards to 30,000 residents. Located in Pinhais, in the metropolitan region of Curitiba, the Schlumberger plant has received an initial investment of US$5 million. The plant has been installed in the existing factory owned by Cardtech, in which Schlumberger purchased an 80% equity stake in 1999. The plant has been renovated to meet the security and technology standards for smart cards demanded by Visa and MasterCard. It will produce both memory and microprocessor cards. “Smart cards will grow exponentially from the current base of 160 million cards in use in Brazil today, as new applications come on stream,” says Uwe Ludke, sales director for Schlumberger in Brazil. “The banking sector alone will grow 20% per year in the short term.” Overall, Schlumberger sees Brazil as a very promising market. “Multinational investments are transforming the country into a development and production centre for high-tech products, such as mobile phones and PCs, and creating a significant opportunity for the use of smart cards, equipped with programmable microprocessor chips.” The practical application of Schlumberger’s approach can be seen in the city of Curitiba itself, where residents and government employees are using the dual interface – contact and contactless - Schlumberger Easyflex City Card, for ID, for banking, as a payment card and for transport ticketing. The City card was first introduced in Curitiba at the end of 1997. At that time, 5,000 local government employees were issued with smart cards to be used as their professional ID card, and for
use in selected shops and supermarkets. (A local bank gives city employees preferential rates on financial services and on credit.) Some 30,000 people now use the City card and an additional 180,000 employees of the state government are due to be issued with the cards in the near future. The City card will be accepted as a means of access to public transport at 2,500 points by mid2001. Passengers who do not possess the full City card (with its ID function) will be able to buy smart card tickets at news kiosks and and at terminals. Initially there will be some 500,000 such cards and this number will grow during the transition from the present paper tickets to smart card tickets. Curitiba’s population is 1.5 million. Further applications are promised, says Uwe Ludke. Patients at county health offices will use the card to store the data that results from examinations and consultations. Parking applications will be added, as well as benefits such as meal tickets. Several projects to add new services to the card, including its use in petrol stations and restaurants, are under analysis. The plant in Curitiba is Schlumberger’s eleventh smart card facility worldwide; the company now manufactures chip cards in France, at other sites in Europe, and in North America, Latin America and Asia. Contact: Dirk Hinze at Schlumberger Test and Transactions, Tel: +33 1 47 46 79 50, e-mail; [email protected]
Point of sale terminals
Ingenico Fortronic doubles sales in first half 2000 Ingenico Fortronic, the Scottish-based manufacturer of point-of-sale payment terminals, has achieved revenues in excess of £10 million in the first half of the year 2000. Currently employing 200 people in the UK (140 of them in Scotland) Ingenico Fortronic is embarking on a major recruitment drive to accelerate new product development and expand into new markets. The company plans to increase its engineering team by more than 20% and will also be adding to software development, sales and marketing staff. As part of its continued growth strategy, Ingenico Fortronic has invested GBP 400,000 in the redevelopment of its UK head office in Dalgety Bay,
Ctt October 2000 • 5
News Dunfermline. The company is allowing space for up to 50 new staff at the site. Ingenico Fortronic reports strong sales of its flagship Eclipse TT41 and its Elite payment terminals. The Eclipse TT41 is an in-store countertop terminal; the Elite range can be configured as as a counter-top, as a portable or as a mobile terminal. Both can handle EMV debit/credit smart cards. Indeed the company looks set to benefit from the UK banks’ roll-out of EMV smart cards. Ingenico Fortronic already has 100,000 terminals installed in the UK. Its client list includes major clearing banks – Barclays, NatWest, HSBC, Bank of Scotland, Girobank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank, Northern Bank and Bank of Ireland, as well as American Express. Petrol retailers are also clients for forecourt payment terminals – including supermarket sites operated by Tesco and Asda. Ingenico Fortronic was formed in February 1999 following the acquisition by the French-based Ingenico group of the payment terminals business of De La Rue. In its pre-De La Rue incarnation as Fortronic, the company was a world pioneer in the development of smart card-based EFTPoS terminals. Contact: Graham Wright at Ingenico Fortronic, Tel: +44 131 459 8800, e-mail: [email protected]
Health cards
Slovenia to add new functions to patient cards The government of Slovenia is to introduce a second phase of its National Health Insurance Card programme, by upgrading the smart cards held by patients and by physicians and other primary care providers. The programme is built round two cards supplied by Gemplus – the Health Insurance Card (HIC) for the insured population and the Health Professional Card (HPC). In the second phase of the programme, prescriptions supplied, organ donor status and emergency medical data will be added to the HIC. In addition, the card will store URL addresses linking the card to sites on hospital databases where a patient’s X-rays, laboratory reports and other medical records may be held. The HIC currently identifies the cardholder,
6 • Ctt October 2000
stores insurance information, designates the cardholder’s primary care physician and enables insurance claims to be submitted electronically. Also in Phase Two, a cryptoprocessor is to be added to the Health Professional Card; this will enable health care professionals to use Public Key technology to secure the exchange of data. The cards will hold digital certificates and be equipped with a digital signature function. The HPC currently identifies the primary care provider, stores their professional credentials and determines their read/write access to patient files and data held on the patient’s HIC. The Slovenian National Health Insurance Card system covers private health care and insurance arrangements as well as state-run facilities. Slovenia has spent US$25 million, over five years, on the first phase of the health card programme, for a population of two million people. Gemplus points out that this has cost just US$2.50 per head per year. Contact: Claire Montenay at Gemplus, Tel: +33 4 42 36 50 00, e-mail: [email protected]
Mass transit
Transit products prove popular in card awards Mass transit products are prominent among the applications submitted for the annual Sesames awards at this year’s Cartes 2000 in Paris. New applications from Gemplus and from ASK are aimed at the occasional traveller. From the Proton World/Motorola camp comes an open electronic purse with a built-in ticketing application, aimed at the regular commuter. Topcard Monetique has produced a portable contactless card reader. Meanwhile Unicom Consulting of Finland offers a management system that makes it easy for transport operators and city administrations to share cards and handles the clearing of transactions. Cardholders can check on the status of their applications by mobile phone or PC (through the Internet). Gemplus has launched a disposable contactless ticket for the occasional user of ski lifts and mass transit systems. The Multi-trip Ticket is a low cost smart card that uses a streamlined manufacturing process to manufacture wireless antennae, embed chips and laminate the cards. The company promises that the price will be about half that of