SAN FRANCISCO Feb. 14, 2006–The Holding company of the MULTOS technology, the world’s first open, high-security, multi-application, smart card operating system, today revealed its new corporate identity, StepNexus Inc.

The re-branding effort marks an active four-month period for the company. In November 2005, a group of strategic partners, Oak Hill Venture Partners, Hitachi Ltd, Keycorp Ltd, and MasterCard International, acquired the MULTOS technology from MasterCard International. The Holding company was established in the US and in the UK.

“StepNexus enables safe environments for content distribution and usage,” said John Wood, CEO of StepNexus. “Our goal is to be the trusted environment brand. Working together with manufacturers, we help people transfer data and applications to their devices securely and to create safe storage spaces. Leveraging our strong record in the financial industry, with more than 50 million smart cards in use every day, StepNexus trusted environments can help governments and enterprises around the world address security and privacy concerns.”

The name StepNexus derives from Secure Trusted Environment Provisioning, with Nexus providing the connection between the technology and the people who count on the unparalleled security offered by the company.

StepNexus offers two initial solutions: 1) The MULTOS Operating System–The world’s most secure multi-application smart card operating system.

Environment management choice for the MULTOS Operating System was introduced in 2005 when the core Asymmetric architecture was supplemented with a symmetric key management variant of StepNexus services called StepOne. StepOne an “entry” variant was targeted particularly at the market for SDA payment cards.

2) StepNexus Service–Initialization and maintenance of device trust environments including MULTOS based smart cards

The StepNexus solution is being extended to other environments where issuers and users are seeking to benefit from enhanced trust and security. Used together the Asymmetric StepNexus Service and the MULTOS Operating System delivers unparalleled flexibility and security. Ideal for identity management and financial transactions, the combination of MULTOS and StepNexus Services have been selected by governments and major banks world wide as their solution of choice where trust and security cannot be compromised.