ACI Worldwide and MAOSCO today announced an agreement for ACI to join the MULTOS Consortium. On joining ACI will gain an influential seat in the Systems Forum and Business Advisory Group of the MULTOS standards body.
As a Systems member, ACI has voting rights over the further development of specifications relating to off-card data preparation and personalisation of MULTOS applications. ACI also gains automatic rights to implement the recently released MULTOS step/one off-card specifications, a blueprint for key management and data preparation of EMV and other value added applications. MULTOS step/one is the entry level MULTOS platform for financial institutions migrating to EMV – an open standard alternative to proprietary operating system EMV cards.
ACI Smart Chip Manager software offers a smart card management solution that manages the contents of millions of MULTOS cards issued in some of the largest and most sophisticated multi-application smart ID card projects around the globe. In addition, ACI card personalisation module enables the loading and enablement of MULTOS and MULTOS step/one applications to MULTOS cards using a variety of card personalisation equipment. In the course of 2004, ACI worked with MAOSCO and the other MULTOS consortium members to demonstrate the first OneSMART MasterCard Branch Issuance Solution for MULTOS, and also demonstrated the first Instant Issuance solution for ICAO compliant e-Passport applications utilising contactless MULTOS chips. ACI and the MULTOS consortium members will jointly demonstrate further smart card issuance solutions for financial and ID MULTOS projects in 2005.
Rainier Brueren, head of smart card management solutions at ACI in Gouda stated: "As the leading supplier of the smart card management system component in some of the largest MULTOS based projects in the world, ACI is in a unique position to contribute to future enhancements of the MULTOS off-card specifications. By joining the MAOSCO consortium, we can contribute our knowledge for the benefit of our growing number of MULTOS customers."
Steve Everhard, CEO of MAOSCO Ltd., said: "Our growing Systems membership underlines the success of MULTOS and MULTOS step/one in major smart card projects. We welcome ACI as a key organisation in the smart card industry but more importantly for the valuable contribution they will make to the evolution of the MULTOS Specifications."