Last night I posted that the Financial Times was reporting that 30 Million German Debit and Credit Cards "stopped working"...
Germany’s savings bank association admitted on Tuesday that a “belated year 2000 problem” had affected more than 20m of 45m debit cards issued by the public-sector. Customers have reported being unable to use the cards to withdraw cash from ATMs or make payments in shops. Many have also been unable to use their cards in shops or cash machines outside Germany. This morning, Gemalto, a major card supplier to Germany issued this press release:
AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News: “We are fully focused on minimizing the inconvenience for the cardholders. As a partner, we will of course meet our contractual obligations, and continue to support our clients. We trust that we will promptly deploy a solution with our German customers to return to full normal operation.”Recent publications report that some German payment cardholders were unable to conduct transactions after the turn of the New Year. Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 - GTO), as a major supplier to German banks, has been working with its customers on investigating and fixing the situation since first informed on Sunday afternoon. Gemalto and the German banks are actively developing together a corrective process that avoids the replacement of the affected cards in Germany. At this stage, according to ZKA (Zentraler Kreditausschuss – the German Central Credit Committee), acceptance of the concerned cards by the ATM (Automated Teller Machines) and point of sales terminals is widely re-established in the country. Gemalto payment cards issued for other countries are not affected.
Olivier Piou, Chief Executive Officer, added: “We are fully focused on minimizing the inconvenience for the cardholders. As a partner, we will of course meet our contractual obligations, and continue to support our clients. We trust that we will promptly deploy a solution with our German customers to return to full normal operation.”
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), Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) in mobile phones, smart banking cards, smart card access badges, 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.
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