Banco Popular Dominicano selects Gemalto bio-sourced EMV bank card

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, Jan. 7, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, is delivering its bio-sourced Optelio EMV bank card to Banco Popular Dominicano, the leading bank in Dominican Republic. The green banking card is manufactured from renewable PLA* material derived from corn and allows Banco Popular to reduce the ecological footprint while ensuring an artistic, high quality product for cardholders.

The card is distributed by Gemalto's local reseller Secumatic and it is issued with the football school from Fútbol Club Barcelona in Dominican Republic, FCB Escola de Santo Domingo. The card provides customers with value added benefits including discounts on sporting event tickets and deals at major restaurants and hotels.

"Banco Popular Dominicano is committed to sustainability and Gemalto, as a long-term signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, stood out as the best partner to support us," said Austria Gómez, Bank Cards Vice President of Banco Popular Dominicano. "Banco Popular is demonstrating a new paradigm for commerce that values sustainability as a way to improve business, increase competitiveness and contribute to boost customer satisfaction."

"The bio sourced banking cards demonstrate our ongoing commitment to using materials and production processes that have a reduced environmental impact," said Rodrigo Serna, President for Latin America at Gemalto. "Furthermore, these innovative cards are delivered in an eco-friendly packaging made from recycled paper and printed with vegetable inks."

* Made from polylactic acid (PLA), a plastic substitute.

About Gemalto

Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO) is the world leader in digital security, with 2014 annual revenues of €2.5 billion and blue-chip customers in over 180 countries.

Gemalto helps people trust one another in an increasingly connected digital world. Billions of people want better lifestyles, smarter living environments, and the freedom to communicate, shop, travel, bank, entertain and work – anytime, everywhere – in ways that are enjoyable and safe. In this fast moving mobile and digital environment, we enable companies and administrations to offer a wide range of trusted and convenient services by securing financial transactions, mobile services, public and private clouds, eHealthcare systems, access to eGovernment services, the Internet and internet-of-things and transport ticketing systems.

Gemalto's unique technology portfolio - from advanced cryptographic software embedded in a variety of familiar objects, to highly robust and scalable back-office platforms for authentication, encryption and digital credential management - is delivered by our world-class service teams. Our 14,000 employees operate out of 99 offices, 34 personalization and data centers, and 24 research and software development centers located in 46 countries.

For more information visit www.gemalto.com, www.justaskgemalto.com, blog.gemalto.com, or follow @gemalto on Twitter.