Club to foster added-value chip card applications in Central and Eastern Europe

Waterloo, Belgium and Prague, Czech Republic, July 15 2004–MasterCard International has launched its OneSMART™ Club programme in Europe–an initiative bringing together MasterCard customers and industry suppliers across a number of markets to foster and support the deployment of added value chip-based business solutions.

Introduced globally by MasterCard earlier this year, yesterday’s launch of Europe’s first OneSMART Club covering Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) was celebrated with an inaugural meeting in Prague. Financial institutions from six countries–Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – have already indicated their support of the OneSMART Club, as have a number of chip technology vendors.

Each OneSMART Club is designed to help MasterCard’s customers leverage the fast growing EMV chip infrastructure through the deployment of added-value chip business propositions. The CEE OneSMART Club will initially focus on three such propositions:

• OneSMART MasterCard Authentication–ensures a higher level of security for online shopping and remote banking
• OneSMART MasterCard Web–allows cardholders to securely store and manage a wide range of personal data (such as names, addresses, URLs, log-on passwords) on the smart card chip
• OneSMART MasterCard Pre-Authorised–a new chip-based payment solution suitable for new markets and off-line payment environments

“A new EMV chip infrastructure is rapidly developing across Europe and generating new business propositions, helping to sharply differentiate our customers’ offerings to their cardholders,” said Fikret Ates, vice president, Product Management at MasterCard’s Chip Centre of Excellence.

“The creation of OneSMART Clubs across a number of European markets is designed to act as a catalyst, helping to turn just such business propositions into tangible pilots and onwards into viable and profitable card programmes,” stated Ates.

“Once we have agreed which projects to foster through into pilot stage, the culture of the OneSMART Club will shift up a gear, with increased commitment from Club members and agreed deployment plans,” added Ates. “With active members in OneSMART Clubs around the world, we anticipate that the OneSMART Clubs will create additional hubs of expertise, helping to support the new EMV environment which is increasingly becoming a global reality.”

Zdenek Houser, general manager for MasterCard’s activities in Croatia and Hungary, was also present at the launch. “When it comes to the introduction of new products, services or technology, our Central and Eastern European customers are among the most active and dynamic” he said.

“EMV chip brings new opportunities for financial institutions to build future services. Banks in each country have firm views on how they will use the EMV chip infrastructure to further build their business, increase their level of customer service, strengthen their retention and acquisition of customers, and differentiate their payment card offerings. MasterCard is eager to help them by bringing together both local and global expertise. Chip migration is rapidly moving forward and we believe the formation of this first European OneSMART Club to be an important move in the right direction,” concluded Houser.

About MasterCard International

MasterCard International is a leading global payments solutions company that provides a broad variety of innovative services in support of our global members’ credit, deposit access, electronic cash, business-to-business and related payment programs. MasterCard International manages a family of well-known, widely accepted payment card brands including MasterCard, Maestro and Cirrus and serves financial institutions, consumers and businesses in over 210 countries and territories. The MasterCard award-winning Priceless advertising campaign is now seen in 96 countries and in 47 languages, giving the MasterCard brand a truly global reach and scope. For more information go to http://www.mastercardinternational.com.