The US is moving towards an October, 2015 liability shift which mandates EMV chip technology to replace the older magnetic stripe cards. Last year alone there were over 1.6 billion EMV cards in use across the globe and many issuers in the US are now accelerating their own migration in light of the recent security breaches that have occurred with major retailers.
Commenting on the transaction, Oliver Piou, Gemalto Chief Executive Officer noted: “The US market is rapidly moving to EMV, and this is another step in our ongoing investments to have the best mix of products and services to support our customers. This move reinforces our ability to deliver advanced personalization services to card issuers in the United States and complements our unique expertise in EMV acquired through the unrivalled number of such migrations we have deployed around the world. Adding these two companies to the Gemalto family will benefit US banks and credit unions of all sizes as they migrate their card portfolios to more secure smart card technology, which has proven to mitigate fraud in all regions of the world.”
Wright Ohrstrom, Chairman of the Board of Cardiff Holdings, added „Serving their collective customers for over 45 years, Shoreline and Source One Direct are leading personalization bureaus in the US. As part of Gemalto, the teams will combine their deep knowledge of the US market with Gemalto’s global footprint and technological leadership just at the right time as the region implements EMV chip & pin technology as the standard for card security.”