Gemalto Wins Best Vendor Partner Award from MasterCard

Gemalto Wins Best Vendor Partner Award from MasterCard

August 23, 2006

-- MasterCard(R) OneSmart(TM) PayPass(TM) EMV Contactless Combi Cards Provided by Gemalto Enhance Consumers' Purchasing Experiences

    AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands and TAIPEI, Taiwan, Aug. 23
/Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO),
a world leader in digital security, today announced that it
has won a "Best Vendor Partner Award" for its
MasterCard(R) OneSmart(TM) PayPass(TM) EMV (Europay
MasterCard Visa) Contactless Combi Cards at the MasterCard
Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa Product Forum in
August 2006. Gemalto is delivering the cards to two of
Taiwan's leading banks: Cathay United Bank, one of the top
three credit card issuing banks in Taiwan; and Taipei Fubon
Bank, Taiwan's second-largest privately owned bank.

    "MasterCard presented this Best Vendor Partner
Award to Gemalto in recognition of their efforts in taking
a lead in designing and producing MasterCard(R)
OneSmart(TM) PayPass(TM) EMV Contactless Combi Card to
financial institutions in Taiwan. The convenient, flexible
and secure MasterCard(R) OneSmart(TM) PayPass(TM) EMV
Contactless Combi Card produced by Gemalto will enable
banks to extend a wide range of valuable services to their
customers." Commented by MasterCard.

    The cards are compliant with Taipei Smart Card
Corporation's applications (stored value card, and Epurse
for transportation applications) and will simplify and
quicken small-sum payments for Taiwan's MRT, bus, parking
lots and other locations, allowing cardholders to benefit
from high-tech, secure and convenient transactions.
Cardholders no longer need to swipe their cards, search for
coins or wait for change: they can simply tap their
MasterCard PayPass EMV Combi cards at PayPass(TM) readers
to complete the transactions. The PayPass(TM) EMV
Contactless Combi Card features both a built-in chip and a
standard magnetic stripe, ensuring the card is still
applicable to be used at existing terminals.

    "We are very proud to be recognized as a Best
Partner by MasterCard," said Tan Teck Lee, President
of Gemalto North Asia. "Our MasterCard(R) OneSmart(TM)
PayPass(TM) EMV Contactless Combi Card provides an enhanced
experience that benefits both consumers and enterprises. As
our projects with two Taiwanese banks demonstrate, our
ultimate goal is not only to make the deployment of card
applications easier for our partners, but also enable our
clients to bring more value to their end users. With a
strong R&D base in the Asia-Pacific region and the
advanced capacity to provide customized state-of-the-art
products, Gemalto is well prepared to explore more business
opportunities in local markets with diverse groups of
partners."

    About MasterCard(R) PayPass(TM)

    MasterCard PayPass is a new "contactless"
payment program that provides consumers with a simple way
to pay. Using MasterCard PayPass, consumers simply
"tap" their payment card, or alternative PayPass
form factor, on a specially equipped merchant terminal,
eliminating the need to swipe a card through a reader or
fumble for cash and coins. The new solution is ideal for
quick payment environments where speed is essential, such
as quick serve restaurants, gas stations, drug stores,
supermarkets and movie theaters.

    About MasterCard Worldwide

    MasterCard Worldwide advances global commerce by
providing a critical economic link between financial
institutions, businesses, cardholders and merchants
worldwide. As a franchisor, processor and advisor,
MasterCard develops and markets payment solutions,
processes close to 14 billion payments each year, and
provides industry-leading analysis and consulting services
to financial institution customers and merchants. Through
its family of brands, including MasterCard(R), Maestro(R)
and Cirrus(R), MasterCard Worldwide serves consumers and
businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. For
more information go to http://www.mastercardworldwide.com
.

    About Cathay United Bank

    Cathay United was formed in a merger between United
World Chinese Commercial Bank and Cathay United Bank, both
wholly-owned subsidiaries of Cathay Financial Holding
Company. United World Chinese Commercial Bank is the
surviving company, but the merged bank was re-named Cathay
United Bank, effective October 27, 2003. Cathay United Bank
is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan and does business
throughout Taiwan with more than 107 branches providing
four major product lines: corporate banking, consumer
banking, wealth management and credit cards. It currently
has eight offices in locations outside of Taiwan, including
Mainland China, South East Asia and the United States. For
more information, please visit: 
https://www.cathaybk.com.tw/cathaybk /

    About Taipei Fubon Bank

    Taipei Fubon Bank was formed in January 2005 following
a merger between Fubon Bank and Taipei Bank. With a total
capital NTD 28.1 billion, Taipei Fubon Bank is
headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan and has 121 branches in
Taiwan and 4 overseas with 5,318 employees. Its lines of
business include corporate banking, consumer banking,
wealth management, credit cards, treasury services, trust
services, government banking and lottery services.

    For more information, please visit: 
http://www.taipeifubon.com.tw /

    About Gemalto

    Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO) is a leader in
digital security with pro forma 2005 annual revenues of EUR
1.7 billion (USD 2.2 billion), operations in 120 countries
and 11,000 employees including 1,500 R&D engineers. The
company's solutions make personal digital interactions
secure and easy in a world where everything of value --
from money to entertainment to identities -- is
increasingly represented as bits and bytes communicated
over networks.

    Gemalto thrives on creating and deploying secure
platforms, portable and secure forms of software in highly
personal objects like smart cards, SIMs, e-passports,
readers and tokens. More than a billion people worldwide
use the company's products and services for
telecommunications, banking, e-government, identity
management, multimedia content, digital rights management,
IT security and other applications. Gemalto was formed in
June 2006 by the combination of Axalto and Gemplus
International S.A. For more information please visit
http://www.gemalto.com .

    * Combi card is a smart card that is the same size and
shape as a magnetic stripe card, but contains a computer
chip with a microprocessor. It has both contact and
contactless interfaces, carries more information than
regular cards, and has the processing power to serve many
different applications.

    For more information, please contact:

     Rebecca Lee, 
     Marketing Communication, 
     Gemalto 
     Tel:   [phone] 
     Fax:   [phone] 
     Email: [e-mail]

SOURCE  Gemalto