The News

U.S. Bank first to offer a single visa card for identification, purchases and secure facility access

27/05/2009

MINNEAPOLIS (May 27, 2009) – U.S. Bank is the first card issuer in the United States to pilot an innovative new product that allows cardholders to use a single card for traditional magnetic stripe purchases, Visa® payWave® transactions and to gain access to secure facilities.

U.S. Bank is currently piloting the program with employees in Minneapolis. Those involved in the pilot can make purchases and enter their secure work location using a U.S. Bank AccelaPay® Visa Card, a prepaid payroll account. The cards contain the MicroPass 4006 platform consisting of two applications: the Visa payWave application, which allows for contactless payment at the point of sale, and the HID® iCLASS® application, which allows for contactless access to secure facilities at U.S. Bank.

The use of one card for identification, payments and secure access has the ability to provide a unique solution to a variety of spaces: government, university, corporate, health care, transportation and many other institutions. Universities, for example, would be able to offer faculty and students secure access to university facilities such as dormitories and laboratories, while also using the same card as an ID and for purchases. The card will also have the ability to combine workplace IDs and security access cards with payment cards providing only one card to employees instead of two.

“We are always looking for new and innovative ways to improve the overall experience for our customers and business partners,” said Dominic Venturo, chief innovation officer of U.S. Bank Retail Payment Solutions. “By working with our business partners, we have been able to bring several technologies together to simplify the end solution for the cardholder.”

U.S. Bank worked closely with several organizations to create this multifunctional card:
• CPI Card Group, a global leader in financial and commercial card production and services, managed the production of the cards for this pilot.
• HID Global, the trusted, worldwide leader in providing solutions for the delivery of secure identity, provided the access control readers for the pilot, as well as the iCLASS technology used within the card. HID handles 80 percent of the secure access market in the U.S.
• INSIDE Contactless, the world leader in advanced open-standard contactless chip technologies, provided their MicroPass® 4006 platform which is powering the Visa payWave application and the HID iCLASS application of the card.
• Visa Inc., operating the world’s largest retail electronic payments network providing processing services and payment product platforms, is the payment network for the card. 

U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB), with $264 billion in assets, is the parent company of U.S. Bank, the 6th largest commercial bank in the United States. The company operates 2,847 banking offices and 5,183 ATMs in 24 states, and provides a comprehensive line of banking, brokerage, insurance, investment, mortgage, trust and payment services products to consumers, businesses and institutions. Visit U.S. Bancorp on the web at usbank.com.