Visa International has joined the Global Chipcard Alliance as a principal member. The alliance, founded in October 1996 by telecommunications companies such as PTT Telecom Netherlands/Unisource, US West Communications Corp, GTE Corp, Bell Canada Corp and Telekom Malaysia, aims to accelerate the development of the multi-functional Smart Chip standard. Other members include American Express Co, Deutsche Telecom AG, Oracle Corp and Siemens AG. Visa, which has already established its own Open Platform for Smartcards, based on Java, has more than 70 smart card programs running in 70 countries and on the internet. It has so far issued 22 million Visa chip cards, out of 600 million Visa branded cards in total.
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