Bull Smart Cards & Terminals and CPI, Two Best-of-Class Companies, Join Forces to Prepare for the Smart Card Boom in the Americas.

Business/Technology Editors

LOUVECIENNES, France and LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 23, 2000

Bull Smart Cards and CPI Card Group announced today that they have signed a co-operative agreement to cover the North and Latin American markets which, by 2003, are expected to represent one third of the world's microprocessor card sales.

The two companies have pledged to unite their efforts to offer their best-of-class know-how to American financial and governmental institutions.

CPI is the North American leader in the production of laminated cards and one of the leading suppliers of bank cards. With two manufacturing facilities in Los Angeles, Calif., and Denver, Colo., CPI has, for the last year, been pursuing an international development plan focusing on the North and Latin American markets. Its aim for the immediate future is to offer local services for manufacturing and microprocessor card customization, in addition to its traditional services.

Bull Smart Cards specializes in the development and marketing of software for microprocessor cards, integrating a high level of security. In this area, Bull, in association with CPI, will bring expertise to a range of card users: banks seeking to migrate to the microprocessor card, countries wishing to deploy ID documents on smart cards, and companies aiming to secure their computer networks and Internet access.

"We are delighted with this agreement with CPI, one of the leaders in plastic card manufacturing in North America," said David Levy, CEO of Bull Smart Cards. "It exemplifies our strategy to offer skills in the development of smart card software, supported by our solid IT background, and sign local alliances with the top specialists in card manufacturing. This combination of skills ensures that our customers will get both state-of-the-art software development and proximity service for the actual production."

"Our move towards the production of microprocessor cards addresses market demand for the coming years, and we are very happy to announce this partnership with Bull Smart Cards, the undisputed leader in this market," said Antonio Accomerio, president of CPI Card Goup. "Our customers will also be delighted that we are teaming up with Bull Smart Cards, because the alliance will enable us to jointly offer the smart cards that both North and Latin America need."

About Bull Smart Cards

Since 1998, under the direction of CEO David Levy, Bull Smart Cards has been focusing its strategy on the development and marketing of software for microprocessor cards, more popularly known as smart cards(1), integrating a high level of security.

The history of Bull Smart Cards goes back to 1977, the year in which the company filed its first patent. Since then, Bull has been the undisputed leader in smart card technology. Today, 20% of all microprocessor cards in circulation worldwide operate with software developed by Bull. Bull is the world leader in the field of software for bank cards, and has a 30% share of the world electronic purse market. In 1999, the company ventured into the GSM market and is now at the leading edge in the development of UMTS, the third generation of SIM cards. It is also promoting the world's first "Internet" smart card.

With its ongoing technological development, supported by an aggressive marketing and sales policy, Bull Smart Cards wishes to maintain, each year, a 20% share of the world market in software for microprocessor cards.

(1) There are, in fact, two types of smart cards: microprocessor cards, which have an embedded microcomputer; and memory cards (e.g. the telephone card) which are used to simply store data. The microprocessor card was invented in 1977 by Michel Ugon, a researcher at Bull, who produced the first working model two years later.

More information can be found at: http://www.cp8.bull.net, or at: http://www.bull.com

About CPI

CPI Card Group is one of the world's leading card technology companies. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif., CPI Card Group is privately held and it has two major centers of competence: California Plasticard, Inc. in Los Angeles, and Colorado Plasticard, Inc. in Littleton, a suburb of Denver, Colo.

Each center focuses on meeting the needs of, and providing services to, a specific market: the center in Los Angeles, which is co-located with CPI headquarters, is focused on production of high quality non-secure magnetic stripe and smart cards (capacity of 400 million cards). The Colorado center specializes on high quality magnetic stripe and smart cards for secured credit card applications and is accredited with ISO 9002 and Visa/MasterCard certification (capacity of 200 million cards). More information can be found at: http://www.cpicardgroup.com.