MicroPass 4000 Product Suite Sets Stage to Extend Contactless Technology Beyond Payments

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France, March 10, 2008–INSIDE Contactless, a leading provider of advanced, open standard contactless chip technologies, today launched the MicroPass® 4000 contactless microprocessor family, a next-generation platform designed to bring a host of new contactless applications to mainstream markets in the U.S. and elsewhere, with two initial product offerings intended for contactless payment applications. The unprecedented price/performance and low-power operation of the MicroPass 4000 product suite heralds a new era for contactless technology to move beyond payments to a broad range of high-convenience mass-market applications, including transit fare systems, access control and loyalty programs, as well as a host of lightweight identification applications.

The INSIDE MicroPass 4000 product suite has been built upon the award-winning and market-leading MicroPass L4-1G and L4-2G products, which have been utilized by more than 25 issuers to deploy more than 35 million units in 2006 and 2007. The MicroPass 4000 intelligent payment platform was designed to optimally meet the high-volume, multi-payment brand and multi-application requirements of the U.S., Canadian and other contactless payment markets. The MicroPass 4002 supports the Discover Zip contactless payment application, while the dual-brand MicroPass 4003 supports both MasterCard and Visa contactless payment applications. The tight integration of INSIDE’s native operating system and microprocessor hardware within the MicroPass platform as well as the integral design, development and testing processes adopted by INSIDE enables the rapid delivery of products into the market that are secure, high performance and highly reliable. Flexible packaging options enable manufacturers to purchase MicroPass 4000 solutions in multiple configurations, including wafer, module and inlay forms for use in card, fob, mobile handset sticker and ticket form factors.

“The MicroPass 4000 product suite gives INSIDE a powerful platform for future growth, providing a growing family of highly optimized and very scalable solutions for payment and other related application markets,” said Charles Walton, executive vice president of payments for INSIDE Contactless. “Later this year we look forward to introducing several additional MicroPass 4000 family products to support additional payment applications as well as non-payment applications that are very well suited to this platform.”

The MicroPass 4000 product suite shares a common architecture featuring a fast, low-power RISC microprocessor, advanced operating system, optimized hardware computing resources and proven data management support capabilities. Each product then is configured to provide highly scalable solutions for very specific mass market applications such as contactless payments, retail/gift cards, access control, transit, ID or other emerging applications. Designed to be embedded in plastic credit and debit cards–in standard, mini and fob form-factors–so that a wave of the card is all that it takes to make a payment, the award-winning MicroPass platform guarantees reliable, convenient and secure payment for issuers and their cardholders.

“Contactless is all about optimizing cost to reach big niche markets. The approach has to combine very straightforward programming with an IC cost that makes the solution practical,” said George Peabody, director of emerging technologies, Mercator Advisory Group. “INSIDE takes a “right weight” approach that can give financial institutions and merchants the niche solutions they need without unnecessary development complexity and cost.

INSIDE also offers the MicroPass SDK to card manufacturers, terminal manufacturers, personalization bureaus, systems integrators and issuers with in-house application development staff. The MicroPass SDK helps developers create retailer loyalty, transit, access and simple ID applications and incorporate those applications onto a MicroPass-enabled contactless payment card. These data applications provide a simple way of creating a value-added experience at the contactless point of acceptance and related access points.

MicroPass is used today to power contactless bank cards issued by more than 25 U.S. and Canadian issuers, along with cards deployed in Asia, Latin America and Europe. MicroPass is the most broadly available core technology for contactless payments with 20 card and fob products from major global and regional card manufacturers certified by the leading card brands. Contactless credit, debit and pre-paid bank cards issued with MicroPass are today able to be used at locations such as McDonald’s, Tim Horton’s, 7-Eleven, CVS, Coca-Cola vending machines, New York City and Philadelphia Taxi Cabs and more than 20 Major League Baseball and NFL stadiums in the U.S.

Availability and Pricing

The INSIDE Contactless MicroPass 4002 and MicroPass 4003 products are available now in production quantities. Please contact INSIDE for specific pricing information. The MicroPass L4-2G product will remain available throughout 2008 as required by bank card issuers.

About INSIDE Contactless

As the only fabless semiconductor company focused exclusively on 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 more than 55 patents granted to INSIDE, including several essential NFC technology patents. INSIDE is the number one market share provider of contactless bank card applications in the world, with more than 35 million MicroPass intelligent payment platforms delivered from launch in 2005 through 2007. These MicroPass platforms power cards from more than 25 leading bank card issuers. More than 25 key partners around the world, including major card manufacturers and handset providers, have successfully delivered “powered by INSIDE” contactless products such as payment and access cards, point-of-sale terminals, NFC-enabled mobile handsets and other products. 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.