Toshiba's Industry-First Single Unit Card Issuing Machine for IC and Magnetic Combined Cards in a Desk Top Size

3 February, 1997


TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation today announced the worldwide introduction of the world's first desk top card issuing machine that integrates IC programming, magnetic stripe encoding, and text and color image printing in a single unit. The new equipment allows IC and magnetic combined cards to be issued immediately, at the point of application, and is expected to find a wide range of uses, including issue of credit cards, shopping cards and membership cards. Sales of an integrated system consisting of the new card issuing machine, a PC, image scanner and all required software, will start this June, at the price of 3,980,000 yen. Sales of the card issuing machine and software alone are scheduled for the near future.

The new machine combines functions previously carried out by three separate machines: a picture and text printer, a magnetic stripe encoder, and an IC formatter. This integration speeds the issue of cards, and dramatically reduces space required by the system; the card issuing machine is only the same size as a desktop PC(H400mm~W600mm~D400mm). Its programming software can be installed on any PC with the Windows OS and a SCSI interface, and images to be printed on cards can be scanned taken from an image scanner, or downloaded from a video camera connected to the PC. 250 card blanks can be loaded into the machine at once, and issue of a single card takes approximately one minute. A high level of security is assured by requiring the combination of a secret code and a key card to operate the system.

The demand for Smart Cards is rising. They are used in an increasingly wide range of applications, including retail cards, loyalty cards, membership cards and school and employee ID cards. Smart Cards incorporating CPU, which support data encryption and so offer higher security, are expected to see sales of 120 million units worldwide in this fiscal year, rising to 190 million in fiscal 1997. As different services are combined in a single card, use of Smart Cards combined with magnetic stripe cards is rising. The expanding of use Smart Cards is also expected to increase demand for desktop Smart Card Issuing machines, from 8,100 units in 1997 to 13,000 units in 2000.

Toshiba has developed Smart cards for over ten years, and is known for it's highly secure, large-capacity memory cards for banks and services. By developing a Smart Card issuing machine that saves space, is easy to handle and with a fast card issuing capability, the company will bring the versatility of Smart Cards to an extended range of services and applications.

System Composition

Options

    Video Camera, Page Printer, Magnetic Optical (MO) Disc Drive


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Information in the press releases, including product prices and specifications, content of services and contact information, is current on the date of the press announcement,but is subject to change without prior notice.