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	July 21, 2010 Interswitch Attains Payment Card Data Security Standard Certification (PCI DSS). February 09, 2010 InterSwitch Invests in Nigerian Children’s Education, Initiates CSR Programme. January 04, 2010 Interswitch Receives Honour From Global Atm Association, Becomes Loyal Member.

PRECISE BIOMETRICS TARGETS BANK MARKET IN AFRICA THROUGH PARTNERSHIP WITH INTERSWITCH.

Precise Biometrics has entered into a strategic partnership with InterSwitch – one of the leading African financial solution providers based in Nigeria. The aim is to supply fingerprint recognition with Precise Match-on-Card™ to bank applications. The partnership is already engaged in a first project, which will provide license sales at a minimum of € 200,000 in 2009.

The partnership between Precise Biometrics and InterSwitch aims at building and promoting biometric Match-on-Card solutions for the banking segment in Africa. The solutions will initially target Nigeria, which is the largest populated country in Africa with more than 150 million inhabitants.

Nigeria recently decided to switch from magstripe cards to the more secure chip cards in order to gradually eliminate the incidence of magstripe fraud in the country. The new Chip and Pin cards comply with global EMV standards and government had given the banks a deadline to replace all magstripe cards with chip-based smart cards by June 2009.

To enable banks migrate faster, Interswitch introduced the Verve card into the market. The Verve card has both international and local security features, and now InterSwitch’s partnership with Precise Biometrics, affords it the opportunity to provide finger print recognition and match-on-card features on its card offering Verve. These features will further ensure that bonafide cardholders can make card present and offline transactions. With fingerprint recognition and Match-on-Card, banks, governments and organizations can increase internal security through personnel verification and KYE (Know your employee).

Mr. Mitchell Elegbe, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of InterSwitch in his statement said’ Interswitch is pleased to enter into this partnership, as Precise Biometrics is the leading provider of biometric Match-on-Card solutions and we believe that our joint efforts and technological know-how will have great commercial potential in the West African region. According to Mr. Elegbe, unlike existing biometric solutions, which often do not accurately match fingerprints on network devices, external servers or database due to fluctuations in power and communication, Precise’s Match-On-Card eliminates these problems. He also added that, because of the hugh market identification and authentication has in Nigeria, InterSwitch has decided to collaborate with Precise Biometrics. Thomas Marschall, CEO at Precise Biometrics comments: “We are very pleased to have come to an agreement with Interswitch which will place Precise Biometrics in a prime position to capture the rising biometric opportunities within the financial sector of West Africa. The Partnership is strengthened by our ongoing National ID card projects and we have substantial commercial expectations for the partnership in 2010 and onwards.” InterSwitch is the leading provider of electronic transaction switching and payment processing in Nigeria and also one of the prime contractors for the National ID card in the country. Major shareholders in the company are a number of African banks, and Interswitch management and staff. InterSwitch is also an established Gemalto partner. Precise Match-on-Card™ is in the process of storing and matching fingerprint information on a smart card to establish the physical presence of an individual. As the fingerprint information does not leave the card, there is no need for database or online communication, and the cardholder's integrity is preserved.
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