The News

Inside Contacteless and CPI card group receive discover certification for mobile payment sticker

19/05/2010

micropass ™  4002-Based Discover Zip Sticker Available Now from CPI

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France, and LITTLETON, Colo., May 19th, 2010 – INSIDE Contactless and CPI Card Group today announced they have received type approval from Discover Financial Services, LLC for mobile payment stickers based upon INSIDE’s micropass 4002 contactless payment processor.  Incorporating the Discover® Zip® payment application, the certified stickers contain all the functionality of a traditional Discover credit, debit or prepaid card, and enable Discover card issuers to offer their customers the additional convenience of using their mobile phones or other portable devices to make contactless payments anywhere using the Discover Zip standard.
Available now, the new Discover Zip mobile payment stickers are being manufactured by CPI Card Group.  The stickers are delivered already pre-cut from ID1 card devices and pre-personalized to allow for personalization and fulfillment using traditional card processing equipment. 

“INSIDE and CPI created the industry’s first open loop contactless sticker in 2008, and we believe stickers will be the dominant mobile commerce form factor in 2010,” said Charles Walton, executive vice president for INSIDE Contactless.  “Now we have combined our proven technology and manufacturing capabilities to create this new Discover Zip mobile payment sticker based on the micropass 4002 chip, which was specifically configured to support Discover Zip, to enable payments to be completed quickly and reliably for the most satisfying cardholder experience.”
The micropass 4002 chip became the first Discover-certified Zip implementation on the market in 2007.  These Discover stickers combine the micropass 4002 with a uniquely tuned RF antenna in a compact prelam that features an innovative shielding design that improves performance in payment sticker applications.  The shielding protects the chip and antenna inside the sticker from interference that might be caused by the metals and radio signals within mobile phones and other electronic devices.

“CPI sees a bright future for contactless mobile payment stickers, and has put in place a commercial manufacturing operation with the industrial capacity to quickly satisfy a multi-million unit market,” said Tom Waters, vice president of sales and marketing at CPI Card Group.  “INSIDE has been a valuable partner for many years, and we look forward to our continuing cooperation to bring innovative payment products to market.”

Discover Zip stickers based upon INSIDE’s micropass 4002 have already been proven during a pilot conducted by Discover with its more than 700 employees at the company’s Riverwoods, IL and Salt Lake City, UT facilities.  The stickers were fully enabled for use at any of the more than 60,000 merchant locations that currently accept Discover Zip in the U.S., including McDonald’s, Rite Aid, 7-Eleven and Home Depot.

With the micropass 4002, card manufacturers and issuers gain leading-edge capabilities while preserving complete backwards compatibility with existing personalization, acquiring and acceptance devices.  micropass 4002 has been built to the latest Discover Network specifications – Discover Network RF Contactless Payment Technical Specification, v2.0 and Discover Network RF Contactless Payment Card Preparation Guide, v1.0.2 – and has been certified by Discover Network for compliance with card brand functional and security requirements.