Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) has become the sole shareholder in Venyon Oy by acquiring the shares held by Nokia. G&D held a majority of the shares before the acquisition.
Since its creation in 2006, Venyon has established as trusted service managers (TSM) on the mobile near field communication (NFC) market.
NFC combines smart card and contactless technologies for secure mobile phone applications. As a TSM, Venyon provides trusted services to provision and manage applications such as credit cards or transit tickets securely over the mobile network on the user’s NFC-enabled mobile phone.
Karsten Ottenberg, CEO of Giesecke & Devrient, said: This move to acquire full ownership of Venyon is another key milestone in G&D’s strategy. It will enable us to continue to expand our position as a provider of secure mobile phone solutions – from SIM and secure microSD cards through software to the secure administration of critical applications on the mobile phone. The market for NFC solutions is expected to develop steadily. Venyon has built up leading service expertise in the NFC ecosystem, which will also be useful to us in other business sectors.
Mark Selby, VP of industry collaborations at Nokia, said: Nokia is proud to be a supporter and provide multiple enabling roles for NFC, one of them having been our investment in Venyon. As the market for NFC is now maturing, the time is right for us to focus our efforts even more on NFC-enabled mobile devices and solutions designed to support NFC.”