Can I Pay With My Elephant? You Can If You Bank With KBC; Belgian Bank to Use Serverside Group's Digital Card Design Technology.

LONDON -- The banking sector is experiencing a falling domino effect, as another key European bank signs up to personalized payment cards using Serverside Group's digital card design technology. Following ING Bank Slaski and Fortis Bank Polska, Belgian bank KBC is the latest issuer to allow customers to design the front of their payment cards with a favourite photo - from loved ones and special places to pets and... if you're lucky enough... African elephants.

Confused? Don't be. KBC is promoting its new 'Personal Banking Card' with a fabulous competition, where it's giving away three eight day trips to Kenya (one per month) and 14 digital cameras (one per week). The competition, which involves designing your own card and answering some simple multiple choice questions about Kenya, can be seen in full at www.mijnKBCkaart.be (Dutch version) or www.macartekbc.be (French version).

In a perfect example of viral marketing, applicants are encouraged to get their friends and family to vote for their card design, which increases their chances of winning the holiday to Kenya. Given the poor response rates of traditional direct mail campaigns, viral acquisition channels are certainly proving more attractive to card issuers.

The cards are free until November, at which point KBC intends to start charging for them. The exact amount hasn't yet been confirmed, but is likely to be around EUR 10. However, KBC says that under certain conditions, people below the age of 25 will continue to get the card for free.

Once again, Serverside's unrivalled technology ensures the card design process itself is seamless and secure for KBC and straightforward for its customers. No software downloads are needed and the entire design process can be completed in seconds. Cardholders design their own cards online using simple editing tools to rotate and resize the image.

They can either upload a personal photo or choose from a large selection of gallery images chosen by the issuer.

KBC says offering personalized cards was inevitable given the popularity of digital photography, soaring internet usage and the fact that, commercially, personal equals profitable. Indeed, in early June, an existing Serverside client publicly confirmed that people with personalized cards use them more often than other cards in their wallet, and it seems an ever-growing number of issuers are waking up to this fact. Currently, 22 financial institutions globally have taken advantage of Serverside's technology and many more will be announced in the months ahead.

James Pendley, Chief Executive Officer, Serverside Group, commented: "The take-up by KBC is another massive boost for Serverside and more proof that a growing number of issuers are waking up to the potential of personalized payment cards. These days, most people are online and most people have a digital camera so it's a no-brainer for banks to allow customers to design their own cards. In fact, it's what more and more customers are beginning to expect. The days of 'impersonal' plastic are numbered."

About Serverside Group Limited

Founded in 2003, Serverside Group is the global technology leader in digital card design and a provider of innovative software solutions for issuers, personalization bureaus and card manufacturers.

--AllAboutMe is a web-based application that allows cardmembers to design their unique payment card online.

--OC-OC (One Customer-One Card) is a next generation card manufacturing process. By allowing individual, digital card images to be created on demand, issuers and manufacturers can harness the power of just-in-time card design, manufacturing and management.

Serverside Group is headquartered in London and has offices in New York, Chicago and Auckland, New Zealand. The company has strategic alliances with Visa, Datacard and Getty Images. For more information, visit www.serversidegroup.com.