UK banking and financial services company, NatWest Group is launching a smartcard product and services center. Platform Seven will be a separate company from NatWest and will win its own customers, developing product and taking the process through to beyond the implementation and evaluation stages. The team is partly composed of members of a NatWest team that has been working on smartcard technology since 1991, including the co-development of the Multos smartcard operating system with Mondex International, the digital cash company.
Platform Seven is currently in talks with several systems integrators and silicon manufacturers, said company president, Graham Higgins, who added you will see a number of announcements over the next few months in terms of both products and partnerships.
The subsidiary is named partly after the team’s concentration on operating system level chip development, and partly in reference to offering security beyond the six recognized levels of ITSEC (information technology security evaluation criteria).
Keith Ferguson, director of electronic markets, NatWest Group, said that the smartcard project is key to the group’s ambition to become an e-commerce leader. He indicated the growth of internet, interactive television, and other smart mobile devices, saying that banks will become increasingly important as a repository for the secure information used in these media.
