Siemens AG has founded a Smart Card joint venture in Singapore with fellow German, pre-paid telephone card specialist Giesecke & Devrient GmbH. Asia Chip Card Pte Ltd, will make a variety of products, from intelligent memory cards to crypto-terminals. Giesecke holds patents for Smart Cards used in payment transactions, dating back to 1968, and prints bank notes or security paper in 80 countries. Siemens will provide the chip expertise for the venture, which will initially be capitalised at $3.3m, with another $9.9m to be put up next year, and will take the 51% controlling stake, Reuter reports. The company says it wants to become the number one supplier of chip cards and take 25% of the Asian market within five years.
