Giesecke & Devrient and Nokia to Provide Secure Application Management Services for NFC Enabled Mobile Devices

Giesecke & Devrient and Nokia to Provide Secure Application Management Services for NFC Enabled Mobile Devices

June 28, 2006

New Global Joint Venture to Allow Mobile Operators, Transport Operators, Retailers, Banks, Credit Card Companies, and Providers of Digital Services and Media Worldwide to Offer Their Services and Applications to Consumers' Near Field Communication (NFC) Enabled Mobile Devices

    MUNICH, Germany and HELSINKI, Finland, June 28
/Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Giesecke & Devrient (G&D),
the world's second largest producer of smart cards, and
Nokia, a world leader in mobile communications, today
announced an agreement with intent to form a joint venture.
Giesecke & Devrient will own 57 and Nokia 43 percent of
the new company. The joint venture will provide services to
the NFC ecosystem by enabling consumer applications, such as
credit cards or transport tickets, to be securely and easily
downloaded over-the-air to NFC enabled mobile devices.
Over-the-air management of the consumer applications is a
critical part for the emerging NFC ecosystem, and the joint
venture will work closely together with other stakeholders
when bringing these services to the market. The joint
venture is expected to commence operations in the fourth
quarter 2006.

    "With the new platform and the services running on
it, we are combining two technologies of the future -
cellular phones and secure, contactless smart card
technology," said Dr. Karsten Ottenberg, CEO and
Chairman of the Management Board of G&D. "Giesecke
& Devrient believes that the secure chip management
platform offers vast potential for new global markets. And
we enjoy a solid first mover advantage."

    "NFC holds great promise for new and intuitive
mobile services for consumers. Nokia is committed to bring
open solutions to the market enabling the NFC ecosystem
creation," said Dieter May, Vice President and Head of
Nokia Ventures Organization. "The new company will play
an important role, as its services will be available to all
stakeholders looking to introduce NFC enabled mobile
services to their customers in an easy-to-use and secure
way."

    OTA Platform

    The joint venture will implement and operate a secure
and versatile service platform to manage the over-the-air
transactions with consumers' NFC enabled devices. The
service platform will be operated in a white-label mode
with in-built interfaces to the IT systems of the actual
service providers, such as banks issuing credit cards. The
over-the-air services will be offered to all parties in the
NFC ecosystem, where mobile operators and other service
providers are exploring the opportunities to cooperate in
launching new services to consumers.

    Open to all ecosystem stakeholders

    The new company's services will be available and open
to any NFC enabled devices from all vendors. Company's
global scale, neutrality and openness are corner stones for
cost efficient services benefiting all stakeholders in the
NFC ecosystem. The company service offering will also help
to harmonize the way how the applications are provisioned
to consumers, thus preventing the fragmentation of the
related NFC services.

    Consumer experience

    Once an application, for example a credit card, has
been securely provisioned to the NFC enabled phone,
customers can pay by simply waving their phone at a
point-of-sale reader. This convenient, fast transaction
comes courtesy of the phone's built-in NFC technology. It
imbues mobile phones with the functionality found in
standard contactless smart cards that are used worldwide in
credit cards and tickets for public transit systems.

    In addition to being compatible with existing
contactless card acceptance infrastructure, an NFC enabled
phone provides other benefits to consumers, such as
capability to view transactions and data on the phone
display and to buy tickets directly to the phone anywhere
anytime. An NFC phone can also be used to access services
by simply touching with the phone a service poster embedded
with an RFID chip.

    NFC leadership

    Nokia, a founder member of the NFC Forum, has been
actively involved in the NFC ecosystem development and
related first projects for three years, and G&D is one
of the first companies in the world to provide over-the-air
application management solutions for NFC enabled devices.
The new company will be well positioned to provide its
services to the market, leveraging both Nokia's expertise
as the global market leader in mobile phones and G&D's
extensive experience in smart card based solutions and
services.

    Press information

    Giesecke & Devrient and Nokia will host two Press
conference calls today, Tuesday, June 27, 2006 at 1.00pm
and 7.00pm Central European Summer Time to discuss this
announcement. The first conference call is mainly targeted
to European and APAC audience, and the second to Americas.

    Conference call number: [phone], Conference ID:
34071, PIN-code: 142004.

    About Giesecke & Devrient:

    Giesecke & Devrient (G&D), based in Munich,
Germany, is an international technology group operating
subsidiaries and joint ventures throughout the world.
Founded in Leipzig in 1852, G&D began as a printer of
securities, and later specialized in banknote production.
The company has been developing solutions and complete
systems for automatic currency processing since 1970.
Today, G&D is also a technology leader in smart cards,
and a solutions provider in a wide range of fields,
including telecommunications, electronic payments,
identification, health, transportation, and IT security
(PKI). In fiscal 2005, the Group employed more than 7,500
people and generated a revenue of EUR1.24 billion. For more
information, visit our Web site at http://www.gi-de.com .

    About Nokia:

    Nokia is a world leader in mobile communications,
driving the growth and sustainability of the broader
mobility industry. Nokia connects people to each other and
the information that matters to them with easy-to-use and
innovative products like mobile phones, devices and
solutions for imaging, games, media and businesses. Nokia
provides equipment, solutions and services for network
operators and corporations. Further information is
available at http://www.nokia.com .

    It should be noted that certain statements herein which
are not historical facts, including, without limitation,
those regarding: A) the timing of product and solution
deliveries; B) our ability to develop, implement and
commercialize new products, solutions and technologies; C)
expectations regarding market growth, developments and
structural changes; D) expectations regarding our mobile
device volume growth, market share, prices and margins, E)
expectations and targets for our results of operations; F)
the outcome of pending and threatened litigation; and G)
statements preceded by "believe,"
"expect," "anticipate,"
"foresee," "target,"
"estimate," "designed" or similar
expressions are forward-looking statements. Because these
statements involve risks and uncertainties, actual results
may differ materially from the results that we currently
expect. Factors that could cause these differences include,
but are not limited to: 1) the extent of the growth of the
mobile communications industry, as well as the growth and
profitability of the new market segments within that
industry which we target; 2) the availability of new
products and services by network operators and other market
participants; 3) our ability to identify key market trends
and to respond timely and successfully to the needs of our
customers; 4) the impact of changes in technology and our
ability to develop or otherwise acquire complex
technologies as required by the market, with full rights
needed to use; 5) competitiveness of our product portfolio;
6) timely and successful commercialization of new advanced
products and solutions; 7) price erosion and cost
management; 8) the intensity of competition in the mobile
communications industry and our ability to maintain or
improve our market position and respond to changes in the
competitive landscape; 9) our ability to manage efficiently
our manufacturing and logistics, as well as to ensure the
quality, safety, security and timely delivery of our
products and solutions; 10) inventory management risks
resulting from shifts in market demand; 11) our ability to
source quality components without interruption and at
acceptable prices; 12) our success in collaboration
arrangements relating to development of technologies or new
products and solutions; 13) the success, financial condition
and performance of our collaboration partners, suppliers and
customers; 14) any disruption to information technology
systems and networks that our operations rely on; 15) our
ability to protect the complex technologies that we or
others develop or that we license from claims that we have
infringed third parties' intellectual property rights, as
well as our unrestricted use on commercially acceptable
terms of certain technologies in our products and solution
offerings; 16) general economic conditions globally and, in
particular, economic or political turmoil in emerging market
countries where we do business; 17) developments under
large, multi-year contracts or in relation to major
customers; 18) exchange rate fluctuations, including, in
particular, fluctuations between the euro, which is our
reporting currency, and the US dollar, the Chinese yuan,
the UK pound sterling and the Japanese yen; 19) the
management of our customer financing exposure; 20) our
ability to recruit, retain and develop appropriately
skilled employees; and 21) the impact of changes in
government policies, laws or regulations; as well as 22)
the risk factors specified on pages 12 - 22 of the
company's annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended
December 31, 2005 under "Item 3.D Risk Factors."

    For more information, please contact:

     Giesecke & Devrient GmbH
     Andrea Bockholt, Pressesprecherin
     Prinzregentenstrasse 159, D-81607 Munchen
     Tel:    [phone]
     Fax:    [phone]
     E-mail: [e-mail]

     Nokia
     Communications
     Tel:    [phone]
     E-mail: [e-mail]

     Nokia Ventures Organization
     Communications
     Tel:    [phone]

SOURCE  Giesecke & Devrient