GlobalPlatform Announces New Chairman

02 December 2003– GlobalPlatform, the global leader in smart card infrastructure development, has named its new Chair, Vice Chair and Secretary/Treasurer following the Board Officer elections which were held at the organization’s Board meeting in mid-November.

Bob Beer, Vice President of Datacard Group and new Board Member of GlobalPlatform, has been named as Chair of the organization. Jim Lee, Senior Vice President Emerging Technologies at Visa International, retains his position as Vice Chair for a third term. Shoji Miyamoto, Deputy General Manager, Smart Card Solutions at Hitachi Ltd., takes on the role of Secretary / Treasurer. All three Officers have been elected to serve a one-year term in these roles.

In October 2003, the fifth GlobalPlatform Board was named. Five of the eleven Board seats were open for re-election and three of those went to incumbents; Gilles Michel of Gemplus, Richard Fletcher of MasterCard International and Yves Moulart of STMicroelectronics. GlobalPlatform also welcomed two new members to its Board; Bob Beer of Datacard Group and Shoji Miyamoto of Hitachi Ltd. All of these Board Members will stand for a two year term.

Bob Beer, Chair of GlobalPlatform, comments: “2003 was an evolutionary year for GlobalPlatform. A number of technical achievements were accomplished, including the Card Compliance Program and the publication of a number of specifications for card accepting devices and systems infrastructure. In addition, the roll out of GlobalPlatform technology has continued, unhindered, throughout many smart card programs across industries throughout the world.

“GlobalPlatform has also stepped up its marketing efforts over the past twelve months and has succeeded in raising the profile of the organization in a variety of ways, including through the re-vamped public website, speaking engagements and by making contact with other industry associations.

“We have a strong Board in place for 2004 and this, coupled with the commitment of the Committee Chairs, makes me confident that we can look forward to a highly productive year ahead, both in technical and marketing terms. Emphasis will be highly focused on driving the adoption of GlobalPlatform standards, in addition to maintaining the momentum in our technical progression.

“I look forward to taking up my position as Chair of an organization that has fast become a leading authority in standards for smart card infrastructure.”

For further information on GlobalPlatform, please visit www.globalplatform.org

-ENDS-

To arrange an interview with Bob Beer, Jim Lee or Shoji Miyamoto, please contact Lee’ann Connell or Sarah Bayne at Sinclair Mason on Tel: + 44 (0) 113 237 0777 or e-mail: leeannc@sinclairmason.com or sarahb@sinclairmason.com

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Full List of GlobalPlatform Board Members:

• Bod Beer, Vice President, Datacard Group – Chair
• Jim Lee, Senior Vice President, Emerging Technologies, Visa International – Vice Chair
• Shoji Miyamoto, Deputy General Manager, Smart Card Solutions, Hitachi – Secretary/Treasurer
• Gilles Michel, President, Gemplus
• Christian Jüttner, Giesecke & Devrient
• Toshiaki Kuzuki, JCB
• Richard Fletcher, MasterCard International
• Shoichi Senda, NTT Corporation
• Carmen Carnero, SERMEPA S.A
• Yves Moulart, STMicroelectronics
• Verina Horsnell, Sun Microsystems

Bob Beer – GlobalPlatform Chair:

Robert E. Beer is Vice President of Business Development for Datacard Group where he is responsible for smart card systems architecture and solution development for the personalization of smart card in emerging schemes and chip platforms.

Mr. Beer joined Datacard in 1985 where he has served roles in Engineering Management and Marketing Strategic Development including that of Project Manager for the development of the highly successful Datacard 9000 Card Personalization System

Since 1995, Mr. Beer has been heavily involved with working collaboratively with smart card based scheme providers and early adopters to ensure that the smart cards involved could be personalized efficiently at high volume.

More recently, Mr. Beer has been a key driver for Datacard’s entry into the area of multi-application smart cards including the post issuance management of applications and cards through the acquisition of the London based Platform7 company.

Mr. Beer has been an active leader in GlobalPlatform where he served for two years as Chair of the Systems Infrastructure Committee which defines standards and interoperability around script based Personalization, Logical Key Management.

More recently he has been elected to serve as Chair of GlobalPlatform for a one year term, from November 2003 until November 2004.

This background has provided Mr. Beer with significant insight. First to the processes and systems traditionally used in large-scale card issuance and secondly to the unique requirements placed on such an organization by the issuance of chip based cards.

Jim Lee – GlobalPlatform Vice Chair:

James W. Lee is senior vice president for the emerging technologies division within Visa International’s Global Product Platforms group. Having joined Visa in 1994, Mr. Lee is responsible for the development of technology strategy for Visa product platforms. This includes participation in and contribution to global standards bodies that impact the interoperability of Visa payment products and services; development of Visa technical specifications for products based on such standards; development of proofs-on concepts; establishment of Visa product approval standards; and management of early implementations of new technology-based products and services.

Prior to this role, Mr. Lee was responsible for the development of Visa chip card product specifications and directed the development and implementation of Visa chip card technology and programs. He also managed and supported vendor and Visa regions in their implementation of Visa chip programs and systems.

Mr. Lee joined Visa from IBM where he had extensive executive experience with local and regional business units in IT consulting, professional services, product marketing and sales support. He also managed education programs and had specific responsibility for customer executive education, internal professional training, internal technical and marketing training for IBM’s South East Asia Region in Hong Kong.

Mr. Lee holds a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from University of California, Berkeley.

Having been actively involved in GlobalPlatform for a number of years, he is currently serving his third term as Vice Chair of the organization.

Shoji Miyamoto – GlobalPlatform Treasurer / Secretary:

Shoji Miyamoto is a Chief Consultant of Smart Identification Solutions Division at Hitachi Ltd, and is a Strategic Director of the Next generation IC card System Study group (NICSS) in Japan.

Mr. Miyamoto joined Hitachi Ltd., in 1967, when he engaged in the research and development of computer control systems at Central Research Lab. and Systems Development Lab.

In 1994, within the Business Solution Systems Division of Hitachi, Mr. Miyamoto became involved in the development of business solutions for smart card systems. Primarily, Mr. Miyamoto has been responsible for promoting multiple application smart card systems in financial and government fields.

In 2003, when the Hitachi Smart Identification Solutions Division was created to actively promote smart card business, Mr Miyamoto was transferred to this department.

He has also been a leader of the SMILE project which was supported by METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) in Japan. The objective of the SMILE project is to accelerate the creation of a smart card infrastructure for Japanese consumer settlement systems. Forty companies, including major banks and credit card companies, were involved in the project.

Most recently Mr Miyamoto has taken up the position of Treasurer / Secretary of GlobalPlatform, the leading organization in smart card infrastructure development.