Ecebs Announces Contract Success with IS Scotland

Ecebs are delighted to announce that the Company has been awarded a significant new contract as part of a consortium led by Novacard Information systems GmbH (Novacard) with Ecebs as partner to supply smartcard technology to the Improvement Service in Scotland.

The contract encompasses a framework agreement, which will run for three years and initially requires the supply of over one million smart cards. This is one of the largest smartcard procurements this year (outside of banking and telecoms).

It is envisaged that a further two million cards will be supplied under the contract with a partial migration to a more sophisticated card, to gain the benefits of enhanced multi-application flexibility, capacity and security. This would allow future applications such as an open e-purse scheme to be considered.

Additionally, under the framework, Aberdeen City Council required 100,000 ITSO compliant JCOP cards, to replace a non-ITSO compliant platform currently in use. This is thought to be the first large deployment of this new card type in the world.

Speaking today, David Braddock, Chief Executive of Advanced Smartcard Technologies commented: “This contract represents a significant strategic step in further developing our channels to market. It should create an environment in which Scottish Public Sector bodies can easily procure and deploy Ecebs’ core product, Multefile, thus gaining all the benefits of enhanced security and flexibility and consequently protecting their investment. From a consortium point of view, I believe smartcard expertise and experience and solid supply chain credentials were crucial in winning this deal. We look forward to building on this success in future procurements.”

Jim Kinney, Director of Operational Services, Improvement Service stated: “We chose this consortium because, first and foremost, it represented the most cost effective solution for the supply of smartcards. Our key role in this has been to look at the collective requirements across Scotland and to maximise the purchasing power of our wide range of stakeholders. We will also get the added value of two companies who are established providers of cards and card services and who can help us to develop our requirements and strategy in parallel with the advances in card technology”

Additional Information

The National Entitlement Card Scheme in Scotland was seeking to put in place a framework agreement to allow for the purchase of smartcards for use throughout the Scottish public sector. The smartcard will be one way to access a National Citizen’s Account to give citizens easier access to public services. With the introduction of the Scotland-wide free bus travel scheme for older and disabled people on 1 April 2006 and a new transport concession for younger people by January 1, 2007, the Scottish Executive took the opportunity to add this entitlement onto the card by way of an ITSO™ compliant transport application.

The Scheme had to ensure that Mifare cards and the more sophisticated JCOP cards (with Mifare 4k emulation) can interact with the new ITSO™ compliant ticketing machines that are currently being installed on buses across Scotland.

About the Improvement Service

The Improvement Service is a partnership between the Scottish Executive, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) and is devoted to improving the efficiency, quality and accountability of public services in Scotland through learning, sharing knowledge and delivering improvement solutions.

About Novacard

As one of the biggest independent manufacturers of identification media the company specialises in the development, production, personalisation and sales of contact chip cards and contactless chip cards. Currently Novacard is the leading supplier of contactless chip cards with a market share of approximately 20% for a large variety of applications in Europe.

The know-how of the company enables Novacard to focus their main field of activity on further innovative and seminal product and technology developments within the field of identification media. This includes among others the development of media in the future markets RFID, dual interface cards and biometric smart cards.