Precise Biometrics targets bank market in Africa through partnershipwith Interswitch

Precise Biometrics has entered into a strategic partnership with
Interswitch - one of the leading African financial solution providers
based in Nigeria. The aim is to supply fingerprint recognition with
Precise Match-on-Card(TM) to bank applications. The partnership is
already engaged in a first project, which will provide license sales
at a minimum of ¤ 200,000 in 2009.
 
The partnership between Precise Biometrics and Interswitch aims at
building and promoting biometric Match-on-Card solutions for the bank
segment in Africa. The solutions will initially target Nigeria, which
is the largest populated country on the continent with more than 150
million inhabitants.
 
Nigeria recently decided to replace magstripe bank cards with more
secure chip cards, so called smart cards, in order to gradually
eliminate fraud related to less secure magstripe cards. The new cards
comply with the EMV (Europay, Mastercard, VISA) standard used in the
bank industry and the government deadline to replace all magstripe
cards with chip-based smart cards is December 31, 2009.
 
To enable banks to migrate faster, Interswitch has introduced the
Verve card into the market. The Verve card has both international and
local security features, and through Interswitch's partnership with
Precise Biometrics, it also includes fingerprint recognition and
Match-on-Card features. These features are used to control a
cardholder's physical presence at the moment of a transaction. With
fingerprint recognition and Match-on-Card, banks, governments and
organizations increase security internally as well as for customers
through personal verification and KYE (Know Your Employee).
 
Mitchell Elegbe, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of
Interswitch states: "We are pleased to enter into this partnership,
as Precise Biometrics is the leading provider of biometric
Match-on-Card solutions. We believe that our joint efforts and
technological know-how will have great commercial potential in the
West African region. The capabilities, security and reliability of
the Match-on-Card solution gives us a positive differentiation from
biometric solutions that are relying on databases or external
servers."
 
Thomas Marschall, CEO at Precise Biometrics comments: "We are very
pleased to have come to an agreement with Interswitch, which will
place Precise Biometrics in a prime position to capture the rising
biometric opportunities within the financial sector of West Africa.
While the strength of the partnership is documented by already being
engaged in a project which will provide income for 2009, we have
substantial commercial expectations for the partnership in 2010 and
onwards."
 
Interswitch is the leading provider of electronic transaction
switching and payment processing in Nigeria and also one of the prime
contractors for the National ID card in the country. Major
shareholders in the company are a number of African banks.
Interswitch is - like Precise Biometrics - an established Gemalto
partner.
 
Precise Match-on-Card(TM) is the process of storing and matching
fingerprint information on a smart card to confirm the physical
presence of an individual. As the fingerprint information does not
leave the card, there is no need for database or online
communication, and the cardholder's integrity is preserved.
 
For further information, please contact
Thomas Marschall, CEO, Precise Biometrics AB
Tel: +46 46 31 11 10 or +46 734 35 11 10
E-mail thomas.marschall@precisebiometrics.com
 
Precise Biometrics is a market-leading provider of solutions for
fingerprint recognition to prove people's identities. With
top-of-the-line expertise in fingerprint verification, Precise
Biometrics offers fast, accurate and secure authentication
of a person.
 
Its core product, Precise Match-on-Card(TM), adds value to ID, SIM,
enterprise and bank cards as well as systems for
access control to buildings, computers and networks. Precise
Biometrics serves business and government
organizations throughout the world and its technology is licensed to
close to 100 million users.
For more information, please visit www.precisebiometrics.com or see a
presentation
www.precisebiometrics.com/movie.aspx.
 
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