December 22nd 2009 – The National Bank of Umm Al Quwain (NBQ) has acquired and installed Cryptomathic’s data preparation system CardInk and OMA Emirates’ personalisation software NanoPerso to facilitate the issuance of its entire debit and credit card portfolio.

CardInk – from security solutions specialist Cryptomathic - generates the personalisation data, including all cryptographic data, for the issuer’s chip and magnetic stripe payment cards. The data is passed to OMA Emirates’ personalisation software NanoPerso, which drives NBQ’s in-house personalisation systems and ensures that data generated by CardInk is personalised appropriately for both Mastercard and Visa EMV cards. This proven, turnkey solution ensures that data generation, key management and personalisation is undertaken within a highly secure environment, which is simple and efficient to operate.

Peter Landrock, Executive Chairman of Cryptomathic, comments: “Working in partnership with OMA Emirates has enabled us to provide a complete end-to-end solution for NBQ, and we are delighted to provide them with our advanced technology. Cryptomathic and OMA Emirates now look forward to offering other financial institutions in the Middle East –and indeed across the world - the opportunity to implement, for immediate use, data preparation and personalisation systems for their card programmes.”

Niranj Sangal, Head – Business Development for OMA-SG, commented: “The industry is currently experiencing a new wave of innovation. OMA/Solution Gulf and Cryptomathic are working with NBQ to accelerate its activities, by supplying a global end-to-end secure solution on the EMV issuance that now allows them to manage their card issuing business quickly and simple.”

CardInk is the only major system that is both HSM (Hardware Security Module) vendor and card platform independent, ensuring flexibility for any card issuing environment, supporting GlobalPlatform, Multos and native cards.

For further media information on behalf of Cryptomathic, please contact Georgina D’Arcy at iseepr: georgina@iseepr.co.uk. Tel: +44 (0)1943 468007.

Notes to Editors:

About Cryptomathic

Cryptomathic is one of the world's leading providers of security solutions to businesses across a wide range of industry sectors, including finance, smart card, digital rights management and government. With 20 years’ experience, Cryptomathic has assisted customers by providing systems for e-banking, PKI initiatives, card personalization, ePassport, card issuing, and advanced key management through best-of-breed security software and services. Cryptomathic prides itself on its strong technical expertise and unique market knowledge. Together with its established network of partners, Cryptomathic assists companies around the world with building security from requirement specification to implementation and delivery. www.cryptomathic.com

About OMA-SG
OMA EMIRATES & Solution Gulf, Sharjah has operated since 1991 in United Arab Emirates with 100% national partnership (Al Owais Group of Companies), with an annual turn over of more than 1.2 Billion USD. OMA Emirates-Solution Gulf is an innovative and thoughtful IT solutions company focusing on secured transactions of payments, personalization solution with its high level of expertise in EMV to the banking and retail segments of the Gulf Region. Presently operating with highly qualified technical staffs, OMA Emirates integrates the different components in the EMV Chip card Personalization with its home grown innovative application solution, leveraging on the scalability, flexibility and interoperability with third party application and providing solutions to most of the banks in the Middle East and Africa region.

www.omaemirates.com
www.solutiongulf.com

About NBQ
The National Bank of Umm Al Quwain (NBQ) was established in 1982 and since then it has been consistently growing in assets and yearly profits. It is currently offering retail, corporate and institutional banking services and also operates an Islamic banking window. NBQ has 16 branches across the Emirates, and has plans to expand further into other countries in the region. The Bank is listed on the Abu Dhabi Stock Market, and is among the leaders in terms of market capitalization. It is well positioned to gain from the economic growth in the UAE, and in the neighboring GCC countries. It has an aggressive business plan to reinforce its presence in the region. The Government of Umm Al Quwain has been the bank’s major shareholder since its inception, besides other UAE major investors.
www.nbq.ae