INSIDE Contactless Announces General Availability of Next Generation Micropass Fob Core for Contactless Payments

INSIDE Contactless Announces General Availability of Next Generation Micropass Fob Core for Contactless Payments

Aix en Provence, France, October 23, 2007–INSIDE Contactless, a leading provider of advanced, open standard contactless chip technologies, today announced the availability of its new MicroPass® Fob Core for contactless payments; enabling card and fob manufacturers to create innovative contactless payment fob’s.

INSIDE’s MicroPass Fob Core is a key technology component of the new Visa Micro Tag, a new key fob payment device containing Visa payWave. Visa U.S.A. announced the availability of the new payment device in the U.S on September 26. The Visa Micro Tag easily attaches to a key ring, and allows cardholders to pay by simply waving their fob in front of a contactless payment reader without the need to physically swipe or insert the device into a point-of-sale terminal.

INSIDE’s low power MicroPass L4-2G intelligent payment platform is at the center of this new MicroPass Fob Core solution and is designed to enable the commercial production of contactless fobs, such as the Visa Micro Tag. INSIDE collaborated with Visa on the design of the MicroPass Fob Core to achieve small form-factor, low cost, and simplicity in production. The MicroPass Fob Core is available in inlay format–using a small, innovative antenna design–which can be customized by card manufacturers based upon issuer branding and design requirements.

The MicroPass L4 intelligent payment platform has been the platform of choice for contactless payment deployments by over 20 issuers in the U.S. and other regions around the globe.

“I am confident that INSIDE’s MicroPass Fob Core provides financial institutions with innovative product choices in implementing contactless payments for their loyal card holders,” said Charles Walton, EVP at INSIDE Contactless. “Contactless payments delivered through alternative form factors such as key fobs, reinforce the contactless value proposition of speed and convenience.”

About INSIDE Contactless

As the only fabless semiconductor company focused exclusively upon contactless chip platforms, INSIDE Contactless is a market leader in Near Field Communication (NFC), contactless payments, and access control. Innovation in contactless technology has led to essential NFC technology patents granted to INSIDE along with more than 55 other patents. INSIDE is the #1 market share company in contactless payment market in the US with more than 20 million chip platforms delivered to card manufacturer partners and more than 20 leading bank card issuers. More than 25 key partners around the world, including major card manufacturers and handset providers, have successfully delivered contactless products such as payment & access cards, point of sale terminals, NFC enabled mobile handsets, and other products which are ‘powered by INSIDE’. INSIDE Contactless is headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France, with offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Poland, San Francisco, and Boston. For more information, please visit http://www.insidecontactless.com.

About MicroPass

MicroPass is a family of intelligent hardware platforms designed to power open standard contactless and dual interface bank card payments in all global regions. Based upon a RISC architecture and optimized to the demanding requirements of contactless transactions, each of the MicroPass family of products feature low power consumption, fast transaction processing, and overall performance meeting the demands of issuer organizations in the bank card payments, transit, and access control markets. MicroPass is the platform of choice for card manufacturers and issuers in the US market with more than 20 million bank cards deployed which are MicroPass powered. INSIDE’s MicroPass L4-2G is an enhanced, next-generation microprocessor-based contactless chip platform designed specifically to meet multi-payment brand and multi-application requirements within the US contactless payment market. With very low power requirements, MicroPass also remains the most suitable core platform for key fob and alternative form factor deployments.

Contact

Elise Koenig
AxiCom France
+33 (0)1 41 06 18 07