Giesecke & Devrient opens smart card facility in Canada

With double the footprint of their previous facility, G&D Canada has enough capacity to meet North American demands for smart cards used in electronic payment systems, high security ID documents, and new applications, such as, customer loyalty programs. Canadians will see their credit and debit cards migrate to EMV technology within the next several years, representing one of the most significant changes ever for the Canadian banking sector. A total of approximately 60 million credit cards and 37 million debit cards will be replaced by chip card versions. The key physical focus of the new production facility is in the protection of client assets and data integrity. It has therefore been equipped with the latest in highly sophisticated security systems including biometric authentication. The facility provides complete card solutions that cover the entire lifecycle of a smart card, from the development of card applications and card design through to printing the laminated cards, embedding the chips, card personalization, and shipping. The production facility is certified by VISA, MasterCard, and AMEX. Canada has been preparing for the adoption of EMV and following related fraud trends in many parts of the world for quite a few years. At the end of 2005, there were approximately 400 million EMV cards, 587 thousand EMV equipped ATMs and 4.5 million EMV equipped terminals globally. Canadas decision to migrate to EMV has been carefully calculated for improved fraud mitigation and dynamic payment capabilities. The G&D Group Worldwide has a strong commitment to R&D as seen in their 2005 annual investment which was 5.4% of revenues. G&D Canada will continue to focus efforts in the areas of IT and R&D. Emerging technology development for smart cards will include, for instance, new ways to optimize chip performance, new form factors, and third party infrastructure for post-issuance capabilities. In the area of identification, many government jurisdictions are moving towards highly secure documents. G&D has invested with this new facility and is well positioned to continue a leadership role in delivering leading-edge government solutions.