Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, today announced its partnership with India-based technology partner mChek, a leading provider of mobile security, banking and payment applications, to bolster the range and choice of secured mobile banking solutions available on Gemalto SIM cards to markets in South Asia.

Since September 2008, Gemalto and mChek have successfully deployed a broad range of mobile banking services with telecom operators in India and Sri Lanka on millions of SIM cards. This includes a mobile top-up service where its customers can recharge anywhere, anytime for themselves or others.

Tan Teck Lee, president of Gemalto Asia said, "mChek has demonstrated an exceptional platform that is flexible and scalable for a broad range of mobile banking and payment applications. By leveraging Gemalto's worldwide partnership program, we can partner with mChek to better serve our customers be they telecom operators or subscribers. Together we aim to bring new levels of security and convenience beyond India and Sri Lanka into markets such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines."

The Gemalto Partner Network consists of leading companies that develop products that are complementary to Gemalto products and solutions. Gemalto partners such as mChek have the benefit of exchanging information and getting access to technology and business support as the company looks at expanding its secured mobile banking solutions. This move reaffirms Gemalto's commitment to the region and to bringing convenient, easy to use, secure-mobile solutions to subscribers.

Facilitating secured transactions on the mobile phone

The rapid adoption of mobile phones around the world, notably in emerging countries, provides an opportunity for the telecom and banking industries to leverage the uniqueness of the SIM card (i.e. a network-enabled personal security device) to provide a range of banking services. While some mobile operators have implemented Stored-Value Account (SVA) wallets, in most countries, banking regulations do not allow non-banks to accept deposits or limit the scope and value of operator managed SVA wallets.

The mChek platform addresses these two issues and provides a solution for telecom operators through Gemalto SIM cards. In a unified environment, mChek enables a broad range of services, including mobile banking, two-factor authentication, secure message delivery, cross-border and domestic money transfer and mobile payments using SVA wallets, direct debit and credit/debit card support.

About Gemalto

Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO) is the world leader in digital security with 2008 annual revenues of €1.68 billion, and 10,000 employees operating out of 75 offices, research and service centers in 40 countries. Gemalto is at the heart of our evolving digital society. The freedom to communicate, travel, shop, bank, entertain, and work—anytime, anywhere—has become an integral part of what people want and expect, in ways that are convenient, enjoyable and secure.  Gemalto delivers on the growing demands of billions of people worldwide for mobile connectivity, identity and data protection, credit card safety, health and transportation services, e-government and national security. We do this by supplying to governments, wireless operators, banks and enterprises a wide range of secure personal devices, such as subscriber identification modules (SIM) in mobile phones, smart banking cards, electronic passports, and USB tokens for online identity protection. To complete the solution we also provide software, systems and services to help our customers achieve their goals.

As the use of Gemalto's software and secure devices increases with the number of people interacting in the digital and wireless world, the company is poised to thrive over the coming years.

For more information please visit www.gemalto.com.

About mChek

mChek (www.mChek.com) is a leading provider of mobile security and payments solutions. Based in Bangalore, India, mChek's solutions are deployed on a large-scale at Bharti Airtel in India and Dialog Telekom in Sri Lanka.Bharti Airtel recently announced 1 million users on the mChek platform. mChek is approved by Visa International and is deployed by leading banks including Citibank, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC bank, Corporation bank, NDB Bank and Seylan Bank.

Source:  Montner & Associates Tech PR Agency