Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, announces the selection by UniCredit Slovakia, to provide Optelio contactless stickers for its first commercial mobile payment deployment. The bank, part of the major financial institution UniCredit Group, is the first to market with a contactless debit payment service in Slovakia. UniCredit Group is a leading European bank with strong roots in 22 countries and an overall global network embracing approximately 50 markets through over 9,600 branches. The Optelio contactless sticker has achieved MasterCard certification and complements a full set of Gemalto services already available for mobile payment.

Gemalto's Optelio contactless sticker (Photo: Business Wire)

The Optelio sticker is a microprocessor-based secure personal device that provides a compatibility solution to enable contactless functionality for handsets that don’t have contactless features built-in. By simply attaching the Optelio contactless sticker to their mobile phone, UniCredit customers will be able to use the contactless feature on payments under EUR 20, while larger amount transactions will require a PIN code. Payments can be made in fast food restaurants, cinemas, supermarkets and other retail outlets across the Slovakia, with its established contactless payment market of over 3,000 acceptance points in place.

Combining diminutive size with the highest communication performance with the terminal, Gemalto’s Optelio contactless sticker has been designed to work on any handset model. Gemalto also provides sticker personalization, packaging and delivery to the end user as part of the service to UniCredit.

“The MasterCard® Paypass™sticker, which we named StickAir, is another unique product modelled upon requests and needs of customers of UniCredit Bank,” commented Monika Kohútová, Head of Retail Banking Division of UniCredit Bank. “It can be issued in relation to any current account open with UniCredit Bank and our customers can affix the StickAir wherever they want, like for example to the rear of their cell phone. Consumers are already accustomed to swiping their travel card to ride the public transportation in Slovakia so we believe contactless technology will also gain user adoption in the payment domain.”

“Moving to contactless is more than just changing the technology, it is also changing long-standing consumer habits,“ added Christoph Siegelin, vice president Sales, Central Europe at Gemalto. “By turning any handset into a payment device, Optelio contactless sticker makes the speed and convenience of mobile contactless payments available for UniCredit to deploy immediately.”

About Gemalto

Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO) is the world leader in digital security with 2010 annual revenues of €1.9 billion and over 10,000 employees operating out of 87 offices and 13 Research & Development centers in 45 countries.

Gemalto is at the heart of our evolving digital society. Billions of people worldwide increasingly want the freedom to communicate, travel, shop, bank, entertain, and work—anytime, anywhere, in ways that are convenient, enjoyable and secure. Gemalto delivers on the growing demands for personal mobile services, identity protection, payment security, authenticated online services, cloud computing access, modern transportation, e-healthcare and e-government services. Gemalto does this by providing secure software, a wide range of secure personal devices, and managed services to wireless operators, banks, enterprises and government agencies.

Gemalto is the world leader for electronic passports and identity cards, two-factor authentication devices for online protection, smart credit/debit and contactless payment cards, as well as subscriber identification modules (SIM) and universal integrated circuit cards (UICC) in mobile phones. Also, in the emerging machine-to-machine applications Gemalto is a leading supplier of wireless modules and machine identification modules (MIM). To operate these solutions and remotely manage the software and confidential data contained in the secure devices Gemalto also provides server platforms, consulting, training, and managed services to help its customers achieve their goals.

As the use of Gemalto’s software and secure devices increases with the number of people interacting in the digital and wireless world, the Company is poised to thrive over the coming years.

For more information visit www.gemalto.com, www.justaskgemalto.com, blog.gemalto.com, or follow @gemalto on Twitter.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6784504&lang=en