Giesecke & Devrient and Nokia to provide secure application management services for NFC enabled mobile devices
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/Helsinki, June 27, 2006 – 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 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: +358 7180 71870, 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 €1.24 billion. For more information, visit our Web site at www.gi-de.com.
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