American Banknote (ABnote) Acquires Keystone Manufacturing (Plastics) Limited
American Banknote Corporation, parent of the ABnote Group, announced that it has acquired Keystone Manufacturing (Plastics) Ltd., of Toronto, Canada, for an undisclosed amount of cash.
The acquisition of Keystone provides the world-wide ABnote Group access to Keystone’s richly diversified suite of customers, along with the ability to take advantage of Keystone’s highly regarded reputation in smart cards. In addition, ABnote announced Bud Kronenberg would remain at the helm of the company together with the current management team.
As a result of the transaction, Keystone will gain immediate access to a wide range of new technologies including Arthur Blank’s “green” initiatives. Keystone will supplement its existing product lines through ABnote’s global strength in secure card issuance and cutting-edge identification products, as well as through its complimentary secure printing, warehousing, fulfillment services and information technology.
“We are extremely proud to be able to acquire a company of the quality, experience and stature of Keystone,” stated Steven Singer, chairman and chief executive of American Banknote Corporation. “Keystone allows us to enter Canada at a very exciting time as the banking community migrates towards EMV and as cross border identification becomes paramount between the USA and Canada”.
“Keystone has built a unique brand in Canada - being able to leverage the dominant skill sets and exceptional knowledge base that ABnote has attained means that Keystone will be able to become an even more significant force in the Canadian marketplace,” stated Bud Kronenberg, CEO of Keystone.
Notes Justin D’Angelo, chief operating officer of American Banknote, “Acquiring Keystone fulfills in part our strategic growth plan, further enabling us to become a major global force in both the secure and non-secure elements of card production and fulfillment. Keystone has carved out a unique niche in the non-secure smart card market and we intend to leverage this knowledge globally.”
CPI Card Group First to Receive MasterCard® Approval for Inside Micropass 4003-Based MasterCard Paypass™ Cards
CPI Card Group announced it has received approval from MasterCard to produce PayPass cards using the new MicroPass 4003 intelligent payment platform from INSIDE Contactless. These new contactless payment cards meet the MasterCard Mag Stripe Technical Specification version 3.2 and are available for immediate card production orders from bank card issuers and bureaus.
The CPI MicroPass 4003 has received the MasterCard PayPass Letter of Approval and Chip Assessment Security Testing (CAST). The MicroPass 4000 product suite is built upon the award-winning and market-leading MicroPass L4-1G and L4-2G products.
“INSIDE’s certifications for its MicroPass 4003 were a tremendous help to us in obtaining final approvals from MasterCard to produce these cards, and our customers will also appreciate the superior cardholder experience made possible by the MicroPass 4003,” said Bob Clarke, vice president of sales and marketing.
“CPI is an innovative producer of high-quality plastic card products, and we congratulate them on their tremendous achievement in being first to market with MasterCard approved contactless payment cards,” said Didier Serra, GM for North America for INSIDE Contactless. “The MicroPass 4003 was specifically designed to optimally meet the high-volume, multi-payment brand and multi-application requirements of card manufacturers like CPI who are creating products for the U.S., Canadian and other contactless payment markets.”
Datacard Group Announces Milestone Installation for Beijing Postage Stamp Printing House
Datacard Group announced that Beijing Postage Stamp Printing House has completed the installation of the first Datacard™ MJ7500™ card personalization system in China and the Asia Pacific region. This newly installed system will produce more than 20 million anti-counterfeiting labels. These labels will be used on the official licensed products for retail sale during an international multi-sport event being held in Beijing, China.
The labels’ unique features allow consumers to certify their products as authentic and easily identify fakes.
“The cooperation between Beijing Postage Stamp Printing House and Datacard is a great opportunity to set a new standard of Drop-on-Demand (DoD) inkjet personalization printing in China and throughout Asia,” said Jeff Peters, vice president of marketing for delivery, fulfillment and packaging solutions for Datacard Group. “The scope of this project demonstrates Datacard Group’s leadership in the area of innovative inkjet personalization systems.”
The card personalization system’s combination of superior print quality and speedy system output enables Beijing Postage Stamp House to produce thermal-like print quality labels with highly secure personalized data, such as barcodes and text.
Designed to personalize products consisting of a wide range of substrates, the MJ7500 system features UV-curable, DoD inkjet printing technology. It delivers production speeds of up to 30,000 cards per hour (CPH) for products with bar codes and magnetic encoding and up to 60,000 CPH for PIN and scratch-off applications.
Mexico Awards Digimarc New Voter ID Contract
Digimarc Corporation announced it has been awarded a contract by the Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE) of Mexico to supply tens of millions of voter identification credentials over the next four years.
The contract extends Digimarc’s service to the Mexican government, building upon the company’s track record in supplying IFE’s voter ID program for the past four years. Digimarc’s solution for highly secure, centrally produced credentials delivered more than 38 million voter IDs under the original contract.
IFE issues photo ID cards to eligible voters for local and federal elections. The voter ID is the main form of identity for the majority of Mexico’s citizens. It is used in banks (for example, when cashing a check) and for almost every official request where an ID is required.
Under the new contract, Digimarc will continue to supply all voter ID card materials and a number of new security features (including digital watermarking), operate central issue card manufacturing facilities, and provide overall service of the system to IFE.
“We are honored by Mexico’s continued trust in our industry leading voter ID issuance solution,” said Bob Eckel, president, ID Systems, Digimarc. “We look forward to enhancing the security of the Mexican voter ID in this new contract with innovations like Digimarc IDMarc™ digital watermarking while continuing to provide a highly secure, centrally issued credential that Mexican citizens can use to establish their identity for a variety of daily needs.”
Gemalto Rolls Out Electronic Social Security Program Nationwide in Algeria
Gemalto announced that it has started the nationwide roll-out of Algeria’s first electronic healthcare project. Following the success of the pilot phase comprising 700,000 cards in five regions, this pioneering healthcare program in Algeria is poised for nationwide roll-out over the coming two years. This timetable is in line with the deadline set by CNAS (the Algerian national health insurance authority) under the terms of the contract won by Gemalto in 2006.
Gemalto is prime contractor for the program, handling end to end implementation of the system for issuing and managing the seven million smartcards used by healthcare beneficiaries and providers.
Gemalto’s solution enables healthcare institutions to manage patient records securely and to verify patient benefits, while maintaining data confidentiality. For healthcare beneficiaries, this new social security smartcard (known as Chifa) simplifies administrative procedures and eliminates paperwork from the submission of claims to the authorities. The high level of transaction security and faster reimbursement represent additional advantages for smartcard users.
Boualem Touati, IT director at CNAS, commented, “The pilot phase proved that the entire system works from one end of the chain to the other. Healthcare beneficiaries, doctors, pharmacists, healthcare organizations, such as social security agencies, can already reap the benefit of the solution implemented with Gemalto. For instance, claim reimbursement times have been cut from 30 to 5 days, and the complete modernization of CNAS’ processing chain will pave the way for a major reduction in operating costs.”
Innovative Card Technologies Announces Technical Partnership Agreement with RSA
Technologies, Inc. announced a two-year supply and license agreement with RSA, The Security Division of EMC. Under the terms of the agreement, Innovative Card Technologies’ one-time passcode authentication cards will be available to RSA’s customers worldwide. The agreement will see the two organizations further their long-standing technical collaboration and complete the integration of RSA’s industry-leading two-factor authentication technology into the ICT DisplayCard.
The vast majority of the Fortune 500 companies leverage RSA products and solutions to protect their information assets.
“It is a key focus for RSA to enable consumers, enterprises and government organizations to balance convenience, risk and cost-of-ownership through their security investments and choices. Our technical integration agreement with Innovative Card Technologies bears witness to the strength of that commitment,” said Christopher Young, vice president and general manager, Identity & Access Assurance Group at RSA, the Security Division of EMC. “We are excited about bringing a new two-factor authentication form factor to the market, and further extending our portfolio of options that helps our customers to take advantage of strong authentication in an easy-to-use and convenient manner.”
The ICT DisplayCard is a device that integrates the security of a one-time password authenticator into a card the size of a standard credit or debit card that can be conveniently slipped into a wallet for ready access. At the push of a button on the DisplayCard, an integrated display shows a passcode that changes with every transaction. InCard and RSA have worked together to develop a DisplayCard that can authenticate online transactions via award winning RSA® Authentication Manager software, which is utilized by more than 20,000 organizations worldwide.
“RSA’s commitment to bringing our product to market shows confidence in both the technology and the market appeal of our ICT DisplayCard,” said Steven R. Delcarson, CEO and President of Innovative Card Technologies. “We are proud that the ICT DisplayCard has passed RSA’s stringent technical requirements. InCard’s partnership with RSA will assist in winning customers and market share with the ICT DisplayCard, a powerful weapon for consumer security in the fight against global Internet fraud.”
Transilwrap and DUNMORE Corporation Have Joined Resources
Transilwrap Company Inc. and DUNMORE Corporation have joined resources to offer the DUN-DIGITAL Films line of synthetic materials designed for use with digital printing presses such as the HP Indigo Press. DUN-DIGITAL films offer three star highest performance ratings from the RIT/HP testing laboratories and feature unmatched printing performance and shelf life. The product line includes materials for durability, tear and chemical resistance that will last longer than paper printed applications. Transilwrap, a leading supplier of plastic substrates to the printing industry, will distribute the DUN-DIGITAL line of substrates throughout the United States and Canada.