CPI Card Group Wins Top Honors for Innovation

TORONTO, July 20 /PRNewswire/ -- CPI Card Group today announced that it has won two innovation awards at the Cardware conference held in Niagara Falls on June 28, 2010. The winning entries, an NFC Pilot for Visa International and a Biodegradable Dual Interface EMV card for its Canadian bank partner, were entered into the International Innovation and Canadian Innovation categories respectively.

"CPI is dedicated to research and development that drives innovation, leading to new products that assist our clients to better compete in the marketplace," said Anna Rossetti, President of CPI Card Group, Canada.  "These two industry recognized awards speak to our commitment to innovation while maintaining environmental consciousness."

For the winner of International Innovation, CPI Card Group provided EMV personalized MicroSD memory cards to enable VIPs and Visa guests to make mobile Visa payWave transactions in the Visa hospitality area during the 2010 Winter Olympics. The technology, which was developed by Device Fidelity, a Texas-based technology company that has been collaborating with Visa for the last year, will also work with a majority of smart phones that have a slot for a memory card.

By inserting the personalized card with Visa's mobile payment application into the memory slot on the phone, users were able to simply select the Visa mobile payment application and wave the phone in front of the contactless terminal to pay.  This fully integrated mobile payment solution is considered superior to contactless stickers that are not integrated into the phone's operating system and therefore lack the ability to offer a rich user interface and other feature functionality.

"CPI Card Group's deep understanding of both contact and contactless technology was instrumental to the success of this MicroSD pilot," said Dave Wentker, Senior Business Leader at Visa Inc.  "Clearly, the personalization process of MicroSD cards will be critical to the success of any commercial roll-out of Visa mobile payments."

The winner for Canadian Innovation is the first biodegradable, dual-interface, EMV MasterCard in Canada. Working closely with MasterCard, and its Canadian bank partner CPI was able to meet the rigorous EMV standards, provide the benefits of contactless and cater to the environmentally conscious consumer.  

"Innovation is the foundation for the future of any market," said Catherine Johnston, President and CEO of the stakeholder association.  "ACT Canada is pleased that CPI Card Group won both an International and Canadian innovation award.  From 26 nominations, only 8 awards were given this year, so CPI is to be congratulated for their innovative work in banking and finance."

About CPI Card Group

CPI, a global leader in financial and commercial card production and related services, offers a single source for card production, data personalization, security packaging, and card fulfillment services.  CPI is a certified producer of products and services under the VISA, MasterCard, American Express and Discover card association brands. CPI has seven production facilities in the United States, Canada and Western Europe and offers the largest network of certified secure facilities in North America.  For more information, visit www.cpicardgroup.com.

SOURCE CPI Card Group