Aix en Provence, France; St. Charles IL, USA 6 November 2006–INSIDE Contactless, one of the world’s largest providers of contactless semiconductor chips, today announced a distribution alliance with Illinois-based Perfect Plastic Printing (PPP) to provide MicroPass-enabled contactless bank cards for the US market The distribution alliance will allow the companies, which have been deploying contactless cards to issuers throughout the United States for some time, to significantly cut order-to-delivery turnaround time

INSIDE’s MicroPass is a contactless chip platform that provides optimum read distance, and requires minimal power consumption for contactless cards that do not have a dedicated power source. It delivers the industry’s fastest transaction processing speeds – typically around 100 msec for a contactless transaction–providing a consistent and reliable experience for consumers, and the industry’s most cost effective solution for card manufacturers.

Perfect Plastic Printing is a recognized leader in the bank card industry, manufacturing millions of traditional and contactless cards for issuers throughout the United States. PPP is using INSIDE’s MicroPass platform, delivered in inlay sheet format, to incorporate contactless payment capability into bank cards which they deliver to their customers. INSIDE is also providing PPP with technical support services needed to streamline the delivery of contactless cards to issuers on a mass-scale. As a result, PPP and INSIDE-enabled cards are already being used by consumers to make contactless payments with nationwide and regional merchants that accept contactless payments, including 7-Eleven, McDonalds, CVS, Ritz Camera, Regal Cinema Group, Walgreen’s and Arby’s.

“INSIDE’s MicroPass platform provides the industry’s best performance, at the lowest cost of any contactless solution on the market,” said Matt Smoczynski, Vice President Marketing for Perfect Plastic Printing. These factors, plus INSIDE’s pre-personalization capabilities and technical support have made selecting MicroPass an easy choice.”

“Perfect Plastic Printing has a tremendous reputation in the industry, and we’re thrilled to help them deliver contactless bank card solutions to their customers nationwide,” said Didier Serra, General Manager and Executive Vice President Sales of the Americas for INSIDE. “Contactless payment solutions continue to gain momentum in the US, and we’re looking forward to a long and successful relationship with PPP to help accelerate this trend.”

About INSIDE’s MicroPass

INSIDE’s MicroPass is a next-generation microprocessor-based contactless chip platform designed specifically to provide a reliable user experience, flexible application development support, and availability through trusted card manufacturers, in a cost-effective manner. MicroPass was specifically designed to require low power while delivering optimum read distance, flexible card orientation, fast transaction speed and security consistent with the demands of INSIDE’s most stringent customers. MicroPass supports all major global RF standards and is available for use in a variety of card and innovative non-card form factors for deployments within the payments, transit, and access control markets.

About INSIDE Contactless

Headquartered in France with a global presence in China, Singapore, Poland and the USA, INSIDE Contactless is a leading fabless semiconductor provider, delivering the most flexible, innovative, cost-effective, and trusted platform for contactless applications including bank card payments and Near Field Communications (NFC). INSIDE is involved in numerous industry initiatives, including the NFC Forum, which is driving the standardization of NFC; as well as the IN-CLUB Limited, which is a non-profit association that brings together companies in the Payment, ID, Mass Transit and Mobile application markets, to collaborate on contactless applications and initiatives. For more information on INSIDE, please visit: http://www.insidecontactless.com.

About Perfect Plastic Printing

Since 1965, Perfect Plastic Printing has been committed to the manufacture of financial transaction cards including Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express. Perfect Plastic Printing’s ongoing innovation in card manufacturing amd unique design capabilities allow PPP’s customers to issue the highest quality plastic cards available today. For more information on Perfect Plastic Printing, please visit: http://www.perfectplastic.com.