Motorola wins two European Smartcard contracts; more than 40 million cards to be issued eventually in Spanish social security and Czech trial health card projects.

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 13, 1996--Motorola, the world's leading supplier of microcontrollers for Smartcards, announced that it has won contracts, worth tens of millions of dollars, to supply microcontrollers that will form the heart of two new European government health and social security card projects.

Under the initiatives, Smartcards -- credit card-sized devices incorporating a built-in computer chip -- will eventually be issued to the entire Spanish and Czech populations.

Motorola will provide 7 million chips for the first phase of the nationwide program in Spain, which which will eventually see 40 million social security Smartcards issued to the entire population. In the Czech republic, Motorola is supplying 10,000 chips for a pilot health insurance Smartcard project in the Litomerice region.

A countrywide health card project for 10 million people is intended for introduction during 1997/8.

Speaking at the Smartcard `96 trade exhibition in London, Allan Hughes, worldwide Smartcard operations manager for Motorola, said, "These two contracts are prime examples of the growing trend amongst governments across the world to look at Smartcard solutions for the administration of public-sector services and benefits.

"Taken together with the continuing expansion in financial and telecom applications, it's only a matter of time before everyone in Europe carries some form of Smartcard."

Motorola has already predicted a huge expansion in the worldwide demand for Smartcards and recently announced that it is increasing its Smartcard chip production capacity tenfold by the year 2000 to meet this demand. Chips for both new projects will be manufactured in Scotland, where Motorola has invested almost $1 billion in semiconductor facilities since 1969, including $350 million in 1995.

The Spanish social security project will use a card manufactured by Spanish card embedder FNMT to store each user's social security and identity details. Eventually, individuals will be able to use their Smartcards at any one of more than 1,500 kiosk terminals and local health-care computer networks nationwide.

With access to information protected by fingerprint-recognition devices, individuals will be able to carry out a range of unassisted transactions from checking their benefit contributions and pension entitlements to looking at the latest job opportunities or even registering with a new doctor.

The nationwide roll-out of the Smartcard project is to be completed by 1999, when 40 million cards will be operational at an overall cost of $400 million.

Commenting on behalf of the Spanish social security Ministry, Mr. Merino, managing director for the Smartcard project, said: "The use of Smartcards represents a fundamental advance in making our service more accessible to citizens. The Smartcards will enable multiple transactions with social security to be carried out in a more secure manner, and their use can easily be extended to other services."

Merino continued, "We have chosen Motorola as a supplier because its proposal was the most technically advanced and competitive."

In the Czech republic, Motorola chip-based Smartcards are one of the tools for improvements in the national health care and health insurance system. During the EU-Phare sponsored pilot project, 10,000 Smartcards incorporating Motorola microcontrollers and manufactured by the German card producer, Orga Kartensysteme GmbH, will be issued.

Carrying selected health insurance and identity details, the smart health cards will enable speedier delivery of health-care services to the individual as well as providing instant access to key medical information, particularly valuable in emergency situations. For health-care providers and insurers, the project should help to reduce administrative costs and incidents of fraud.

Mr. Neuwirt, head of the Czech health Smartcard project steering committee and representative of the Czech Healthcare Ministry, commented, "Our decision to use a smart health card based on Motorola microcontrollers is fundamental to the improvements we are making in our national health-care system.

"Like many other Western European countries, we recognize that microprocessor-based Smartcards, rather than other available cards, provide a more efficient and secure method of handling this type of information.

"The Smartcard system will also have the capacity to evolve in the future as we extend the health insurance card project to include additional information such as social security details and work towards the goal of compatibility with other European medical information systems," Neuwirt concluded.

With 1995 worldwide sales of $8.5 billion, Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector is the largest U.S.-based broad line supplier of semiconductor solutions. Motorola is one of the world's leading providers of wireless communications, semiconductors and advanced electronic systems, components and services.

Major equipment businesses include cellular telephone, two-way radio, paging and data communications, personal communications, automotive, defense and space electronics and computers. Motorola semiconductors power communication devices, computers and millions of other products. Motorola's 1995 sales were $27 billion. -0-

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