Five Additional Firms Join Fargo Technology Alliance; Will Present Effective Smart Card Solutions At Second Fargo Technology Showcase Sunday, September 30.

Business Editors & Technology Writers

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 30, 2001

Fargo Electronics, Inc. (Nasdaq:FRGO) today announced that Cyberpro Technologies, Inc. of Montreal; Datakey, Inc. (Nasdaq:DKEY) of Minneapolis, InterMarte Corporation of Thousand Oaks, Calif., Information Technology Consultants Limited (ITC) of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Thales e-Security of Sunrise, Fla., have joined the Fargo Technology Alliance (FTA), a global technology group which promotes effective, advanced smart card solutions. Fargo is the world's leader in innovative technologies for desktop plastic card personalization systems.

Alliance members participate in special Technology Showcase events with Fargo's Distribution Partners in conjunction with industry conferences and trade shows. The second Fargo Technology Showcase will take place on Sunday, September 30, in San Antonio, Texas, one day prior to the American Society of Industrial Security (ASIS) 47th Annual Seminar and Exhibit October 1-4. Technology Showcase keynote speaker will be Joseph Grillo, president and CEO of HID Corporation, Irvine, Calif.

"The Fargo Technology Alliance now unites 22 smart card solution providers with Fargo's international and domestic network of distribution partners. With the Alliance members - the very best smart and proximity card application software developers and manufacturers - working together with our global distribution system, Fargo is able to provide a wider range of complete solutions for end users. This generates sales for all companies involved, and builds Fargo's competitive advantage," said Gary R. Holland, president and CEO of Fargo.

"The use of advanced technology, such as smart and proximity cards, is creating new opportunities for distributed card personalization systems," Holland noted. "The U.S. Department of Defense Common Access Card project, which uses over 1,500 Fargo printers, is a prime example of the implementation of this technology.

"In just a few short years, Fargo card personalization technology has expanded from relatively simple systems for door access to much more complex personalization systems for the education, loyalty, healthcare, e-commerce and mass transit markets, just to name a few," Holland said. "At the same time, card encoding is evolving from relatively simple bar code and magnetic stripe cards to complex schemes with smart cards, proximity cards, and hybrid cards, which use multiple technologies on a single card."

New FTA members include:

Cyberpro Technologies, Inc. of Montreal, Canada, is a solution provider involved in the smart card industry since 1995. It develops and implements integrated turnkey smart card solutions for multiple applications of this technology. Cyberpro has a portfolio of over 60 smart card programs implementations. Most of these programs were developed in cooperation with complementary business partners (card and terminal manufacturers, advertising agencies, system integrators) looking for easy to implement, easy to customize, innovative loyalty, promotional marketing and gift certificate solutions.

Datakey, Inc. of Minneapolis, is a pioneer in developing smart card-based solutions for network security applications. Their products feature smart cards to secure business-to-business e-commerce by protecting a user's identity and ensuring the identity of each party involved in a transaction. Datakey smart cards store user identity information and perform the cryptographic functions necessary to enable secure communications and strong user authentication over computer networks such as the Internet, intranets, extranets, and VPNs.

InterMarte Corporation of Thousand Oaks, CA, is a company that incorporates products and services from the telecommunication and financial fields. These products include prepaid e-commerce cards, Internet services, secured and non-secured credit cards, reloadable stored value smart cards, and wire transfer of funds within the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia. InterMart has commenced initial deployment of packaged e-commerce solutions, and its core competency is the global deployment of unified reloadable SmartcardX.

Information Technology Consultants Limited (ITC) of Dhaka, Bangladesh, is a private company involved in banking automation and software solutions. ITC is a part of Envoy Group, the second largest exporter in Bangladesh. ITC is the first company in that country to introduce shared ATM concepts. In collaboration with BANQIT Sweden it is providing a total banking solution in Bangladesh. ITC is also in partnership with Grameen Software Limited (a company owned by Grameen Bank), to introduce Smart Cards for Grameen members (7.8 million in total) all over the country.

Thales e-Security of Sunrise, FL, a subsidiary of The Thales Group (LSE:THS), provides e-business security solutions to customers worldwide. With offices in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and the United States, it provides smart card personalization software and hardware security modules for the cryptographic functions to a variety of market segments. The P3 Personalization Preparation Process receives files generated by host applications and adds the appropriate data for the smart card applications to produce a composite file in a format ready for the personalization system. P3 solutions are designed to work with any card production equipment and support all financial applications on the market (VSDC, VisaSmart, Visa Cash, MCHIP Lite, and MCHIP Select. Tamper resistant modules allow keys to be stored securely without risk of exposure to operators.

For more information on Fargo Technology Alliance members, see their web sites: CardLogix at www.cardlogix.com; CardSmart Technologies at www.YourCardSolution.com; CASI-RUSCO at www.casi-rusco.com; CP8 at www.cp8.bull.com; Cyberpro Technologies, Inc. at www.cyberpro.ca; Datakey, Inc. at www.datakey.com; Gemplus at www.gemplus.com; IDenticard Systems at www.identicard.com; ImageWare Systems Inc. at www.iwsinc.com; InterMarte Corporation at www.InterMarte.com; Intraproc at www.intraproc.com; IT Consultants Limited at www.consultantit.net; Leapfrog at www.leapfrog-smart.com, or www.conduithealthcare.com; Lexington at www.lexingtontech.com; Nfive Software at www.nfive.com; Schlumberger at www.slb.com; SmartDynamics at www.smartdynamics.com; SuperCom Smart Cards at www.supercomsmart.com; Synercard at www.synercard.com; Thales e-Security at www.thales-esecurity.com; UbiQ at www.ubiqinc.com; and Universal at www.unicard.com.au

About Fargo

Fargo Electronics, Inc. (Nasdaq:FRGO) is the world's leader in innovative technologies for desktop plastic card personalization systems. Based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Fargo printing systems create personalized plastic identification cards complete with digital images and text, lamination, and electronically encoded information. Personalized identification cards provide physical, information and transaction security for a wide variety of applications including retail stores, e-commerce, government installations, schools, sports and recreation facilities, clubs and associations, and correctional facilities. More than 50,000 Fargo systems are currently installed throughout the U.S. and in over 100 other countries. For more information, visit Fargo's Web site at www.fargo.com.