The 7th edition of CARTES Africa organized by i-conferences in partnership with Mastercard will take place in the hotel Kenzi Menara of Marrakech on April 26th and 27th, 2012.

On the menu, a rich and varied program focusing on innovations relating to the use of cards, security, multi-application, m-payment, prepaid and corporate solutions.

Those 2 intense days will be full of special interaction and networking moments, with highly informative conferences in the background.

Philippe DELANOUE, ABnote Europe CEO participates this year again, as moderator in the panel 2 of this major appointment of the technologies and the card businesses in Africa.

He will intervene on Friday, April 27th, 2012, from 9:00 am till 10:00 am, on the theme “The prepaid business, a solution that fits African consumers”

The prepaid business remains one of the best solutions in the African context.Its evolution confirms that it can be an engine for the development of cards technologies.

- Assessment of the development of the prepaid business/The prepaid business and all its applications

- Global perspective of the prepaid business in the world and in Africa

- The prepaid business opportunities

-The prepaid business as a source of wealth creation

-Security problems relating to prepaid cards

-Focus on bank prepaid cards

-Development of a value chain between players

He will lead this conference with the participation of the following speakers:

François Chaffard, Directeur, Europe du Sud et Afrique, Gemalto, France

Loïs Le Sceller, Responsable de la division Paiements, Prosodie, France

Driss Belemlih, Vice President Prepaid Program, Mastercard, UAE

To know more, contact us at : marketing@abnote.eu

ABnote Czech took a part in the event CARDFORUM , the banking conference
hold for Slovak banks, processors and other suppliers acting on the Slovak banking market
in the hotel CROWN PLAZA, Bratislava.

We appreciate we could present our sales team, our technical specialists and took a part in the pannel disscussion
with other suppliers. It was a good occasion to meet our clients, partners and potencial customers.

Brigita Borošová
Head of ABote CZ Sales

ABnote Global, a leading global provider of secure documents, issuance systems and related services, announced today that its European data center has earned approval as a MasterCard Trusted Service Manager (TSM).

The TSM certification for the data center in France complements the TSM certifications previously received by ABnote’s Australian and New Zealand data centers, which were the first in Australasia to earn  such approval.

ABnote’s European TSM designationexpands even further the Company’s ability to provide highly-secure remote services, including  the over-the-air  (OTA) and over –the-internet (OTI) downloading and personalization of NFC-enabled mobile phones, as well as instant-issuance solutions.

ABnote’s TSM delivers interoperability between mobile operators and financial issuers who utilize a mobile phone with a Micro SD, iPhone Sleeve or SIM Card (UICC chip). 

The TSM is a safe platform to securely provision payment and offer additional applications across a secure network.

With ABnote’s TSM, financial institutions and service providers receive a cost-effective, easy to use, standardized and secure method to transfer and install MasterCard PayPass™ enabled payment account information, on demand and real time, onto NFC enabled mobile phones. Once provisioned, consumers can immediately use their mobile phone at every merchant location worldwide where PayPass™ is accepted.

Philippe DELANOUE ABnote Europe CEO stated that, “ABnote offers an independent and secure TSM platform, which results in innovative, secure and profitable mobile applications. A variety of deployment models which meet the unique needs of customers are available, delivering confidence in the implementation and ongoing management of the TSM services provided. With more than 200 years of experience in processing and safeguarding critical data, ABnote continues to deliver the trust and security customers can rely upon.”

To learn more about our Trusted Service Management offer, watch our video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpQrEYALCEU

About ABnote and ABnote Europe:
ABnote, with facilities in North America, Europe and Australasia, is a premiere and trusted provider of secure issuance and related services. In addition to secure mobile payment technology, primary products include identification and secure access cards (drivers’ licenses, national ID cards for governments worldwide, hotel and facility entry cards), financial cards (debit and credit cards), commercial plastic cards (gift, loyalty and membership), secure documents (savings bonds, stock certificates, passports, vital records, and checks), and related services (personalisation, warehousing, distribution and fulfilment). Besides the secure mobile payment, ABnote Europe is one of the European leaders of the supply and the personalization of banking, financial, identification, transport and loyalty cards. The company also supplies a consequent range of transaction systems for these various sectors. ABnote Europe brings together under the same brand a secure personalization plan and datacenter in France, a card manufacture and personalization plan, based in Ostrava in Czech Republic but also commercial offices in Slovakia.

For more information visit: ww.secureissuance.com – www. abnote.com – www.abnote.eu

From the cluster PICOM, Natural Security is accompanied by shareholders and is set on EuraTechnologies of Lille. His main idea is to give the user the opportunity to be the only carrier to pay its authentication without presenting or manipulating a carrier, an innovation in the field of payment and supermarkets.

Natural Security develops a strong authentication device in order to facilitate and accelerate the payment of proximity and distance.

It gathers several technologies: the biometry and the contactless. The proposed application combines the simplicity, speed and security regardless of location and the amount, without having to use their means of payment or enter their PIN.
A project of this scale requires partners in the retail, banking and industry, several banks answered positively at this ambitious project, and others will follow without hesitation.

CPS Technologies, subsidiary of ABnote Europe, has been selected to ensure the supply and card personalization.
The challenge for CPS Technologies is to conduct a close and daily interaction with the banks institutions, considering that they have for each of them various constraints and way of operation.

Natural Security has been able to trust ABnote Europe and CPS Technologies, and we wish them a good result and a very bright future!

6th Forum of card technologies in Africa has been a major success, his has been a true platform of technology and business card, due specially to the strong involvement of the Interbank Electronic Banking Centers in the regions.

As a moderator Philippe Delanoue was pleased to support this event “Cards Africa 2011”, a topic that he knows very well “Security and Authentication: controlling the risks of a contact changing market”.

Testimonial of Charline Allard from Development Business Europe to ABnote:

“If the fraud is still increasing today, especially with the development of remote payments (internet..) Several ways are exist to use strong authentication and proper regulation. Unfortunately the fraud will always exist and for example in Morocco it is 0.05%, while Visa and Mastercard allow a fraud rate of 0.35%.

It is also important to let the market develop before considering security Process.

On the legal and regulatory side, it is necessary to think about infrastructure before the technology. The importance of an adjustable monitoring framework to different stages of steps of development to the payment instrument. The role of power-cons central banks must be accepted and understood by operators who want to develop a way of payment. ”

These three-day conferences were to match the size of the continent! ABnote Europe is ready to repeat the process and gives you an appointment for the 7th edition of “Cards Africa 2012”.

I was lucky enough to be one of the 2,500 directors who took part in the “Fete de l’Entreprise” on Monday 31 January.  Organised by “Le Progres Group” in association with “CGPME” (General Confederation of Small and Medium Sized Businesses in France) and 9 other partners, the event recognises the tenacity of business leaders who are surviving the economic crisis. The theme for the evening was Realism and Optimism:

Source : Le Progrès

Realism which comes from the fact that most small and medium sized businesses have no choice but to battle against the difficult economic reality we face.

And Optimism because the only way through this, for everyone in business, is to find the resources and means to develop or rework how they do things.

Francois Turcas, boss of CGPME Rhone added a humorous note to the evening, recalling St. Augustin’s words: “Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.” On a more corporate note he said “The crisis is still here but there are good reasons for hope as long as we adapt, evolve and share”.
Watch the video clic here

And I agree with him on this. The business directors who received recognition all demonstrated a strong ability to fight back and develop their business and I was proud to be among them.  As I said when I received the award, there would have been no individual award for me had it not been for the commitment of the team I work with. As always I am keen to emphasise the importance of commitment and engagement from everyone at CPS Technologies.

A complete list of the winners is below:

Entrepreneur of the year Award - Prize given by Jean-Christophe LAROSE, CEO of Groupe Cardinal

to Philippe DELANOUE CPS Technologies, an ABnote Europe Group company

International Award – Prize given by Jean-Jack QUEYRANNE, Rhône-Alpes Region President
to Xavier PICCHIOLI, managing director of Exo International

Innovation Award – Prize given by Pascal JACQUESSON, managing director of Keolis Lyon
to Bruno BONNELL from Robopolis company

Environment Award- Prize given by André KIENER, Commercial Director of EDF Entreprises Rhône-Alpes Auvergne
to Laurence HUMENNY, Gérante de l’établissement Bio Motel

Companies Societal Liability Award - Prize given by Jean Yves GUYON, General Director of Apicil
to Jean-Michel BERJAUD and Olivier CANONE, associated directors  of Alteractive

Handing over business Award – Prize given by Claude BLANCHET, Interregional Director of Caisse des Dépôts
to M. BOUCAUD-MAITRE from Chocolat Voisin

Small Business Award – Prize given by Jean-Marc JAUMOUILLE, professional techniques director of Fiducial
to Anne GODDET from Mayo Parasol

Best Hopeful Award – Prize given by Denis DE BENAZE, General Director of IDRAC Lyon
to Frédéric FORETTI from Biossun

Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award- Prize given by Jean-Luc DUFLOT, Network Director for LCL
to Françoise SAVASTA from IBEP-EB.

Production teams are often the unsung heroes of business – so it’s great that one of our customers has an award that recognises their achievements. Each year BNP Paribas awards the Cristal Challenge to the card supplier who has performed the best, in terms of quality of service and speed of delivery. And we were delighted to win the award this year, selected as the best of three suppliers.

I attribute our success to the way that the production teams work together. We spend a lot of time on internal communication, on making everyone feel responsible for the job in hand. So it’s really rewarding to see that these efforts translate into an excellent service and that this service is truly valued by our customers. I firmly believe that it’s the people that use the machines – rather than the machines themselves – that make a difference in card  production and personalisation. And I feel that this award is recognition of that.

We are celebrating our 25th anniversary this year and it’s a great birthday present! A big thank you to everyone who has helped us to achieve this.

Welcome to the new ABnote Europe website. This site brings the European subsidiaries of ABnote Group under one roof and combines the product and service offerings of CPS Technologies and ABnote Czech.

Our decision to include a blog in the new site was mainly driven by the feeling that we have, from speaking with customers, partners and other suppliers in the smartcard space, that the pace of change is speeding up. And as the pace quickens, we need a place to discuss what’s going on, to analyse the changes that developments in technology – and more significantly – how people are using it, are forcing on the cards market.

The smartcard market is changing – fast – for a number of reasons:

• Our clients are under pressure to deliver more personalised services to their customers. And this increased level of personalisation means they need to embrace new technologies and new channels. The “issue and forget” days of single application and single function cards are coming to a close.
• Developments in the component manufacture, in terms of technical sophistication, as well as price, also have an impact. As prices come down and the processing power available in ever smaller pieces of silicon grows, the potential for powerful chip based applications seems limitless.
• If you add to this the big changes that we have started to see in the smart card acceptance infrastructure, in terms of the business models that surround the processing of transactions and the terminal technology itself, you build up a picture of a market experiencing a number of strong forces of change.

And we are right in the middle of this change, ensuring that we have the right products and services in place to help our clients to make the necessary adjustments to their business.

After 26 years in the smart card market, with a team that genuinely has many years experience of this market, I am excited to be part of the next phase of development. We hope that by providing a small window into our world with this blog and inviting you to take a look in and have your say, that we will contribute something useful.

Let us know what you think – good or bad – we want to know!