MasterCard Records Sharp Increase in Smart Card Programs Worldwide

Smart card adoption continues to gather force in most regions of the world. Smart card activity has been particularly strong in the Asia/Pacific region, where the number of EMV smart cards has continued to double each year - to 14.5 million cards today. The same basic trend holds true in Latin America/Caribbean, South Asia and Middle East Africa and especially Europe, which continues to lead the world with more than 200 chip migration programs now underway. There are more than 40 migration programs currently in progress in Asia/Pacific. This widespread technology shift has helped to guide recent decisions by MasterCards regional boards in Asia/Pacific, Europe, Latin America/Caribbean, and South Asia and Middle East Africa, who have all recently enacted intra-regional liability shift policies calling for the full-scale adoption of smart cards and chip terminals in the 2005 and 2006 time period. Migration incentives are already in place in most of these regions as well. Migration Successes in Asia/Pacific In Asia/Pacific, MasterCard?s success in assisting member financial institutions migrate their MasterCard credit and debit cards to the EMV chip platform is demonstrated by the continued proliferation of smart card programs. MasterCard?s strategy is built upon interoperability, multiple application capability, and product flexibility to enable members to design the best programs for their markets. The majority of these smart cards carry value-added applications such as electronic cash and loyalty in addition to the secure M/Chip payment application. In the first half of 2003, the following member financial institutions initiated M/Chip and other programs: - Japan - UC Card, OMC Card, Pocket Card Co. Ltd, Takefuji Corporation, Credit Saison Co. Ltd, UFJ Card Co. Ltd, Central Finance Co. Ltd, Hitachi Card Service Corporation - Korea - BC Card, LG Card, Kookmin Card, Samsung Card - Malaysia - Southern Bank, Bank Islam, HSBC Malaysia and RHB Bank - Taiwan - NCCC, Cosmos Bank, International Bank of Taipei, Far Eastern Bank, HsinChu Bank, Aeon Credit Card Co. Ltd Additionally, in Taiwan, numerous members have signed up for Mondex. In June 2003, BancNet, MasterCard and Mondex in the Philippines entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in which MasterCard would support BancNet in its move towards EMV-compliance. Mondex, in turn, would provide BancNet with a framework for an e-purse system, allowing its member banks to issue Mondex cards to their customers. To help ensure a steady stream of MasterCard chip products in the marketplace, MasterCard is working to equip the vendor community with the tools they need to support MasterCard smart card programs around the world. Card vendors including Austria Card, Gemplus, Giesecke & Devrient and Setec have committed to supporting M/Chip 4. MasterCard has also recently signed an agreement with Ingenico, making Ingenico a key supporter of MasterCards M/Chip deployment program. Global Support Programs Last year, MasterCard announced OneSMART* MasterCard, a comprehensive, global support program covering every aspect necessary to successfully launch smart cards. With OneSMART MasterCard, all of MasterCard?s global smart card solutions, technical expertise, and marketing support were consolidated under a single banner. Expanding on this, MasterCard is today unveiling a subset of OneSMART MasterCard, called the M/Chip Deployment Program, which provides a complete solution for MasterCard?s customers who are migrating their payment cards from the magnetic stripe platform to chip. The M/Chip Deployment Program focuses specifically on addressing all aspects of chip migration and consists of three components: - The M/Chip application and its enabling infrastructure - M/Chip Implementation Support Services provided by M