CPI Card Group and INSIDE Contactless receive Élan Award for payment sticker
Littleton, Colorado, April 29, 2009 – CPI Card Group (CPI), a global leader in financial and commercial card production and services, and INSIDE Contactless, a leading provider of advanced, open-standard contactless chip technologies, today announced they have received both an Élan award and a finalist position at the 2009 ICMA Annual EXPO for their innovative payment sticker products. The payment sticker, based on INSIDE’s MicroPass® contactless chip technology, can be affixed to any portable device such as a cell phone, and is available with a companion PVC card.
The Élan award and finalist placement were in the following categories:
- People’s Choice, Winner (Tie): First Data GO-Tag™ sticker, manufactured for First Data
- Best Other Secure Card Design, Finalist: First Data GO-Tag sticker, manufactured for First Data
Charles Walton, Executive Vice President at INSIDE Contactless, said, “Working together, INSIDE and CPI were able to bring these stickers to market in record time, and we look forward to introducing innovative new sticker applications in the future.”
Bob Clarke, Vice President at CPI Card Group, adds, “CPI and INSIDE formed a very successful partnership to develop this GO-Tag product, and we are proud that the Élan award recognizes this achievement.”
The only award that recognizes card design innovation as well as technical achievement in the industry, the ICMA Élan Awards honor card manufacturers and vendors for their excellent card design and innovative products. Each entry was selected by a panel of judges in a blind competition. Entries were judged solely on the card’s features and were not identified by company. Delegates attending the Expo selected the People’s Choice Award winners.
CPI and INSIDE created the industry’s first contactless sticker product for open-loop (branded bank card) payments. The sticker technology combines the flexible MicroPass 4003 contactless payment processor with a tuned RF antenna in a compact, shielded prelam for payment sticker applications. This innovative shielding design improves performance by protecting the chip and antenna inside the sticker from interference that might be caused by the metals and radio signals within mobile phones and other electronic devices. CPI established a scalable operational process for producing these payment stickers based upon MicroPass sticker prelams delivered from INSIDE. The sticker devices are delivered from CPI already pre-cut from ID1 card devices and pre-personalized to allow for fulfillment using traditional card fulfillment equipment and processes.
CPI’s project management and manufacturing expertise combined with INSIDE’s technology leadership and support enabled the companies to go from prototype engineering samples to developing and introducing a real payment sticker product in a very short time.
About CPI Card Group
CPI, a global leader in financial and commercial card production and related services, offers a single source for plastic cards, from foil cards and holograms to translucent and smart cards, and personalization and fulfillment services. CPI offers the largest production capacity in North America. CPI’s production sites include Denver, Colorado; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Las Vegas, Nevada; Colchester, England; Liverpool, England; and Toronto, Canada. CPI’s plants in Colorado, Nevada and Liverpool are ISO 9001 certified.
For more information, visit http://www.cpicardgroup.com.
About INSIDE Contactless
INSIDE Contactless is the global leader in open-standard contactless payment and Near Field Communication (NFC) semiconductors and software that power the next generation of payment, transit, identity and access control applications. The company’s intelligent, microprocessor-based platforms offer the flexibility to be embedded in smart cards, mobile phones and other consumer electronic devices, documents, badges and other items to support a wide range of innovative contactless applications and bring new levels of convenience to users. INSIDE has delivered more than 300 million contactless platforms worldwide to customers and partners that include many of the leading payment card and mobile phone manufacturers, systems integrators and financial institutions. With a portfolio of 60 families of patents, including several essential NFC patents, the company has played a leading role in NFC and contactless innovation. INSIDE is headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France, with offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Warsaw, Seoul and Silicon Valley.
For more information, please visit http://www.insidecontactless.com.