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Inside Contactless Powers Cashless Payments at International School of Bangkok

Vertical Payment Solutions Deploys INSIDE Contactless Technology to Implement CAMPUS System

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France, September 8th, 2008 - INSIDE Contactless, the world leader in advanced contactless microprocessor platforms, today announced its contactless payment technology has been used to implement the first CAMPUS cashless payment system in Thailand at the International School of Bangkok (ISB).  Combining INSIDE's PicoPass contactless memory card technology, Accesso® desktop USB contactless reader, M210-2G contactless coupler and Hand'IT-2G Compact Flash contactless reader, Vertical Payment Solutions Pte Ltd has integrated the CAMPUS cashless payment application into the identity cards carried by students and staff to create one of the world's first completely cashless schools.

"INSIDE has worked very closely with Vertical Payment Solutions as our partner for this project to help adapt our PicoPass cards for a variety of proximity and vicinity contactless applications within the campus and to ensure that our various reader solutions provided the performance and security required for each application," said GOH Say Yeow, executive vice president sales and managing director for Asia Pacific at INSIDE Contactless.  "PicoPass is the open-standards solution of choice for dual protocol (ISO 1443-B, ISO 15693) use in a broad range of low-end ID, access control, stored value and other applications, and we are excited to have it play such a pivotal role in this cashless campus payment system."

Using the CAMPUS system, ISB expects to become a totally cashless school by October of this year.  The system allows students and staff to simply tap their PicoPass smart card to buy food at the canteen, purchase uniforms and stationary, pay for excursions, make photocopies, print documents and purchase items online or from campus kiosks.  Parents can top up accounts, set daily spending limits and monitor student activity such as tracking attendance or banning certain food items to promote healthy eating or protect from allergies.

"INSIDE is a leading player in the contactless chip market, and their products complement very well our requirements for security, versatility and high performance," said Darren Box, general manager for Vertical Payment Solutions.  "We are very excited to be part of what we believe is one of the first educational organizations in the world to go completely cashless, and INSIDE has been with us all the way in both product and service while we tailored the solution to ISB specifications."

Based on INSIDE's PicoPass contactless memory technology, the CAMPUS smart card stores the cardholder's personal information and provides access to a cash value that can be topped up using payment gateways integrated into the CAMPUS Online web page or from cash acceptors build into the CAMPUS kiosk.  The CAMPUS payment arrangement allows schools to participate in the program at very little setup cost, and once the system is operational it is self-funding.  The Australian School in Singapore, the first to use the CAMPUS system, has been set up as the world showcase for the CAMPUS solution. The International School of Bangkok is now taking the CAMPUS concept to its fullest by creating a completely cashless campus.

"With more than 1000 students and staff converging on the canteen at meal times, long lines at the cashier were commonplace, but now a quick tap of the CAMPUS Card is all that's necessary to purchase a meal, relieving this congestion while helping us reduce our administration costs by eliminating cash from the canteen," said Stephen Lehmann, director of information technology at ISB.  "Parents are able to add cash, limit usage and monitor purchases using the online web portal, all of which lead to educationally valuable conversations at home about diet and budgeting."
 
About INSIDE Contactless
INSIDE's innovative, contactless and NFC semiconductor solutions are transforming how the world conducts transactions and information exchange. The company is the world leader in advanced contactless microprocessor platforms with 55 patents and more than 100 million products delivered worldwide. INSIDE enables bank card issuers, retailers, device manufacturers, service providers, and card brand organizations to deliver innovative consumer products and services with a high "cool factor" and outstanding user experience. INSIDE is headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France, with offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Warsaw, Seoul, San Francisco, and Boston.

For more information, please visit www.insidecontactless.com.