The News

Solidifies Undisputed Leadership in Contactless Payments Market

13/05/2008

ORLANDO, FL., May 13, 2008 – Affirming its position as the undisputed leader in the contactless payments market, INSIDE Contactless today announced that shipments of its revolutionary MicroPass® intelligent payment platform for contactless payment cards has surpassed 50 million units. Since it was first launched at CARTES in November of 2005, the MicroPass platform has achieved its unprecedented success by continuing to deliver superior performance, flexibility, and is now the platform of choice for certified card manufacturers around the world.

Approved by Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Network – including all required functional, analog, performance, and security requirements compliance – the award-winning MicroPass platform is the most broadly available core technology for contactless payments, powering more than 50 million bank cards from over 30 card issuers worldwide. MicroPass is used to power more certified card products than any other contactless technology, providing issuers with broad choices for card manufacturing. Its low power and high performance, combined with the industry's fastest transaction time and outstanding read distance, enables MicroPass to deliver a superior cardholder experience for a broad range of innovative uses. The new MicroPass 4000 suite builds on this success to deliver high-volume, multi-payment, and multi-application capabilities for the next generation of contactless payment applications.

“We anticipate continued strong growth in the North American contactless payments market in 2008 with more than 25 active issuance programs and value propositions to consumers, issuers, and merchants demonstrated,” said Charles Walton, executive vice president of payments for INSIDE Contactless. “Our strong market share is testament to our ability to maintain technology advantage, a unique multi-pronged marketing approach that emphasizes education, and an extensive enablement program that makes it easier for card manufacturers to adopt our technology. Looking forward, we anticipate that 2009 will be the tipping point for North American contactless payments adoption with a total market in excess of 100 million contactless chip shipments expected.”

The MicroPass intelligent payment platform is designed to power open standard contactless and dual-interface bank card payments along with other value-added applications in all global regions. Based upon a RISC architecture and optimized to the demanding requirements of contactless transactions, each of the MicroPass family of products is designed to meet the demands of issuer organizations in the bank card payments, transit, and access control markets.
“Contactless payment technology has seen steady expansion, and INSIDE is a driver behind this growth by delivering innovation to its key constituencies,” said Bob Egan, chief analyst for TowerGroup. “We expect the market to continue its evolution by supporting emerging convergence among contactless payment, transit fare collection, retail loyalty, access control and ID, and other emerging applications.”

Visa, MasterCard and American Express have all launched contactless payment initiatives, and leading banks across North America are issuing millions of contactless credit and debit cards to consumers, according to the Smart Card Alliance. Major retailers across the U.S. are installing contactless readers integrated with point-of-sale (POS) systems that can accept contactless payments. Consumers enjoy added convenience, speed and ease of use afforded by contactless payments, while issuers and merchants enjoy faster transaction times, increased spending per transaction, lower operational costs, and penetration into the cash payment market.

About INSIDE Contactless
INSIDE’s innovative contactless and NFC semiconductor solutions are transforming how the world conducts transactions and information exchange. The company is the world leader in advanced contactless microprocessor platforms with 55 patents and more than 100 million products delivered worldwide. INSIDE enables bank card issuers, retailers, co-brand partners, service providers, and card brand organizations to deliver innovative consumer products and services with a high “cool factor” and outstanding user experience. INSIDE is headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France, with offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Warsaw, Seoul, San Francisco, and Boston.