Roland Moreno, the creator of the Smart Card and the founder of Innovatron SA, which recently turned in annual profits of some $1.5m, has now set up a Dutch-registered financial subsidiary specifically to collect royalties generated by card licences. The Amsterdam-based company, Innovatron Smart Card Venture NV, has been 80% funded by Innovatron de la Banexi – part of the Banque Nationale de Paris – and merchant bank Edmond de Rothschilds, with the remaining 20% presumably generated from Moreno’s own funds. The company will also invest in materials and applications for the different licensed versions of the parent’s card, and will establish a card manufacturing outlet, Gemcard, with first shipments set for the end of the third quarter. Meanwhile, Innovatron SA has announced that NEC and Matsushita have been granted memory card licences, bringing the number of Japanese companies working on the product to eight. Moreno claims that overall, an estimated 70 companies in Japan are currently experimenting with Smart Cards card – although so far without generating a single application: personal hopes appear to be pinned on the US rather than Japan, particularly introduction into the US by the Blue Cross Blue Shield company of a health card, which could eventually push card production levels well into the millions. Fundamentally, claims Moreno, the success of the card has been generated by the public authority type applications – health and welfare and such, rather than standard corporate applications like bank or charge cards.
