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HomeMember NewsVisa Negotiates New Smart Card Offers For Member Banks

Visa Negotiates New Smart Card Offers For Member Banks

December 2, 2003
Member News

Visa Negotiates New Smart Card Offers For Member Banks

Nineteen Technology Partners to Provide Cost-effective Solutions to Visa

Cartes, Paris, France, 18 November 2003–Visa International today announced a number of special offers for Visa member banks from a range of smart card technology providers that belong to its Visa Smart Global Partner program. The offers–from 19 of the Visa Smart Global Partners–cover a wide range of innovative products and services for card issuers and acquirers. The Visa Smart Global Partner program is a component of the Visa Smart initiative, Visa’s comprehensive chip migration program.

Through the Visa Smart Global Partner program, launched in the spring of 2000, Visa negotiates special offers with leading smart card technology providers. A series of offers have been agreed upon over the past three years that have helped Visa member banks migrate to EMV chip technology. Some are for limited time periods and a limited number of early adopter banks.

“The value of the Visa Smart Global Partner program can be seen by the number of EMV cards that Visa now has in circulation, which has reached almost 100 million by year end, and the number of EMV-capable acceptance devices deployed, at nearly two million. This program and other regional initiatives have undoubtedly helped to spur the issuance of EMV and GlobalPlatform cards, which is the real measure of smart card success,” said James Lee, senior vice president, Emerging Technologies at Visa International. “Working with global technology providers, we can ensure that these offers are available worldwide and that they cover all aspects of EMV chip migration. We also continue to complement local offers that Visa has also negotiated with regional businesses.”

Some examples of the new offers include:

  • test tools (Barnes International, ICC Solutions)
  • smart cards (Axalto–a Schlumberger Company, Orga)
  • payment system software, smart card management software, professional services, multi-application card management systems (Axalto–a Schlumberger Company, Bell ID, CardBASE, STMicroelectronics)
  • personalization solutions, data preparation, key management solutions (Bell ID, DataCard Group, NBS, Thales e-Security, UbiQ
  • smart card migration training/consulting and EMV training/consulting (ACI, Axalto–a Schlumberger Company, Gemplus, Giesecke & Devrient, Oberthur Card Systems)
  • EMV hardware, software and professional services (Gemplus, NCR)
  • EMV transaction software (Oasis Technology)
  • POS terminals (SAGEM)–smart card based loyalty software (Welcome Real-time)

Added Mr. Lee: “As we continue the migration to EMV chip, we recognize that we have to do more than just issue specifications. Through programs such as the Visa Smart Global Partners Program we are making products affordable so that more member banks can participate, which, ultimately, benefits our business partners.”

Note To Editors:

About Visa Visa is the world’s leading payment brand generating US$2.7 trillion in annual card sales volume. Visa has unsurpassed acceptance in more than 150 countries. The Visa organization plays a pivotal role in developing innovative payment products and technologies to benefit its 21,000 member financial institutions and their cardholders. Visa is a leader in Internet based payments and is pioneering the creation of u-commerce, or universal commerce–the ability to conduct commerce anywhere, anytime, and any way. For more information, visit http://www.corporate.visa.com.

For more information on the companies mentioned in this release, please visit the following websites:

For more information contact Sabine Middlemass, Visa International, +1 650 432 8307 (smiddlem@visa.com).

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