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Sydney, Australia, 16 Nov 2004- Keycorp Limited today announced that a large multi-national Card Issuer has ordered the MULTOS Step/One for its EMV rollout of MasterCard International smartcards. The order was placed via CASSIS International, which provides the card issuing services, including card personalisation for the Card Issuer. The initial rollout will occur by the end of the year in the the Card Issuer's Malaysian branch network.

The Group will be the First Card Issuer in Asia to rollout smartcards based on the MULTOS Step/One Platform. It will be the first MULTOS Step/One customer for MasterCard.

The MULTOS Step/One is a new entry level Open Standard operating system smartcard designed to give Financial Institutions a low cost way to adopt an EMV (Europay-MasterCard-VISA) smartcard strategy and then make the easy transition to fully configured MULTOS platform at the time of their choosing.

"MULTOS Step/One offers Financial Institutions a competitive solution to their basic financial cards while still provide open sourcing multi-application capability and seamless upgrade to the higher functionality of MULTOS platform." explained Tim Fletcher, Keycorp's General Manager, Smartcard Technologies.

This solution provides a consistent platform from entry level MULTOS Step/One to a fully configured MULTOS with the same application software and infrastructure.

Chua Thian Yee, CEO of CASSIS International, welcomes the opportunity to add MULTOS Step/One to its portfolio of solutions that CASSIS could offer to all of its customers. "The MULTOS Step/One, being compatible to other MULTOS platforms, is a wise solution for financial institutions rolling out EMV chip cards." he said.

"CASSIS International provides card and application lifecycle management services to ensure transparent upgrades to higher functionality of MULTOS platforms. CASSIS is proud to have an alliance with Keycorp and looks forward to a long and lasting working relationship." he added.

Steve Everhard, CEO of MAOSCO (the MULTOS Consortium) added, "MULTOS Step/One is a proof point that the right decisions were made in the original specification and in the on-going management of the MULTOS specifications. The fact that we are able to generate derivative versions, like the MULTOS Step/One, in such a short period and leveraging on all strengths of MULTOS fully validates the design."

MULTOS Step/One will be leading the market as entry level and extremely competitive multi-application EMV product that delivers MULTOS traditional security, process and open supplier benefits.

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About CASSIS International
CASSIS International is a leader in providing intelligent business process outsourcing, consulting services and relationship brokering services to card issuers, device issuers and service providers. CASSIS builds application environments and solutions for our clients to register and process smart cards and other chip-enabled portable devices so that cardholders and users can dynamically and securely access multiple applications offered by service providers. Working with leading card and device issuers, payment associations and service providers, CASSIS enables its clients to exploit the multi-application chip platform, helping them in the creation of new revenue streams, growing transaction volume and customer acquisition and retention. The company is a partner of VISA International and MasterCard International for the provision of EMV project services to their members.

For more information, please contact info@cassis-intl.com or visit www.cassis-intl.com.


About Keycorp
Keycorp is a global provider of secure electronic transactions: with solutions from smartcards and point-of-service transaction systems to network carriage and payment engines. Keycorp is a founding member of the MULTOS Consortium which has responsibility for developing the MULTOS multi-application smartcard operating system. Keycorp develop and distribute smartcard operating systems such as MULTOS and OSSACA, as well as smartcard applications, smartcard personalisation, and SIM cards for GSM mobile phones.

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