Amsterdam (The Netherlands), 12th June 2006 - JCB, the Asia-based global payment brand, together with seven world-class players in payment systems, terminals, NFC and mobile technology, is pleased to announce the launch of a pilot project using an NFC contactless credit payment scheme this autumn in Amsterdam.

This project is being run by a joint cooperation among JCB, CCV Holland B.V., Gemplus, KPN, Nokia, PaySquare, Philips and ViVOtech. With the contactless credit payment scheme, consumers can benefit from the convenience of using their mobile phone to make small payments in Amsterdam.

Selected cardmembers will be supplied with a Nokia mobile phone equipped with Philips' NFC chips, loaded with the JCB payment application. Cardmembers will be able to pay at merchants by just waving their mobile phone at the contactless payment terminal.

In the first stage of the pilot, JCB will be targeting approximately 100 cardmembers located in Amsterdam and merchants in and around the city's World Trade Center. On this scale, the pilot is primarily designed to evaluate technological aspects and operational feasibility including customer ease-of-use. The companies involved in this project are hoping to expand both the cardmember base and merchant locations as the project evolves.

This pilot will mark the very first implementation in Europe of a contactless credit payment scheme using a mobile phone with an NFC chip.

"The concept of this scheme is developed by JCB, coming from its experience of the contactless technologies in Japan. We hope that this can be a great opportunity to explore the small amount payment environment in this market", said Mr. Hajime Matsuura, Branch Manager at JCB International's Amsterdam Branch, who is leading this pilot project. "Everybody knows that the mobile phone is nowadays a must-have item and people cannot go out without it. So, it's the most useful and convenient method for our cardmembers to pay small charges ranging from parking to supermarket purchases. We are confident that it will enable us to expand our business scope to the smaller amount transactions, as well as to extend a higher level of services to our cardmembers".

JCB's partners involved in this pilot are:

• CCV Holland for deployment of terminals and processing of the transactions,
• Gemplus to specify and develop the mobile payment application and the associated personalization solution
• KPN for the installation of the application and personalization of the mobile phone,
• Nokia for deployment of the NFC mobile phone, 
• PaySquare, JCB's acquiring partner in the Netherlands, to acquire merchants, 
• Philips for consultation on and delivery of the NFC technology, and 
• ViVOtech to deploy the contactless EMV readers, the ViVOpay 5000 series, to accept payment from NFC mobile phones.

About NFC
NFC is an easy-to-use short range wireless technology that is quickly becoming the technology of choice by operators, handset manufacturers, credit card companies and public transport operators around the world for contactless transactions including secure payment and ticketing due to its strong consumer appeal and ease-of use.
This pilot marks the first implementation of a contactless credit payment scheme in Europe using handsets with an NFC chip embedded. NFC is jointly developed by Philips and Sony, NFC is a combination of contactless identification and interconnection technologies that enables secure short-range communication between electronic devices, such as mobile phones, PDA's, computers and payments terminals via a fast and easy wireless connection. NFC operates in the 13.56 MHz frequency range, over a distance of typically a few centimeters and combines the functions of a contactless reader, a contactless card and peer-to-peer functionality on a single chip. It is an open interface platform that allows fast and automatic set-up of wireless networks, which also works as a virtual connector for existing cellular, Bluetooth and wireless 802.11 devices. NFC is compatible with Sony's FeliCaTM card and the broadly established contactless smart card infrastructure based on ISO 14443 A, which is used in Philips' MIFARE(R) technology. www.nfc-forum.org

About JCB
JCB is one of the global payment brands and the largest card issuer and acquirer in Japan. JCB launched its card business in Japan in 1961 and began expanding overseas in 1981. Its merchant network includes 13 million merchants and spans 190 countries and territories. JCB cards are now issued in 20 countries and territories, with 55.99 million card members. As part of its international growth strategy, JCB has formed alliances with more than 350 leading banks and financial institutions globally to increase merchant coverage and cardmember base. As a comprehensive payment solutions company, JCB is committed to providing high-quality payment services to customers, merchants, and partners. For further information, please visit theJCB home page at www.jcb-global.com/english/ or www.jcbcorporate.com/english/.

About ViVOtech:
ViVOtech (www.vivotech.com) is the market leader in contactless payment software, transaction management systems and readers. These solutions allow consumers to make contactless payments with radio frequency-enabled credit cards, debit cards, key fobs, and NFC enabled mobile phones. ViVOtech's products can be found at some of most prominent retailers in the United States. With more than 160,000 units shipped, and installed in 16 various countries, ViVOtech's products are being used by movie theaters, fast food restaurants (QSR), casual dining establishments, convenience stores, gas stations, drug stores, grocery and vending machine locations enabling them to accept contactless/NFC payments. For the field pilot, ViVOtech is providing the ViVOpay 5000 contactless EMV payment readers for various merchant locations in The Netherlands.

About Gemplus
Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP) is a world leading player in the secure card industry in both revenue and total shipments (source: Gartner-Dataquest 2005, Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor). It has sold billions of smart cards and other secure cards.
Gemplus delivers a wide range of portable, personalized solutions in areas including Identity, Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking, Retail, Transport, Healthcare, WiFi, Pay-TV, e-government, and access control. Gemplus' revenue in 2005 was 939 million Euros.
www.gemplus.com

About Royal Philips Electronics
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) is one of the world's biggest electronics companies and Europe's largest, with sales of EUR 30.4 billion in 2005. With activities in the three interlocking domains of healthcare, lifestyle and technology and 161,500 employees in more than 60 countries, it has market leadership positions in medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring, color television sets, electric shavers, lighting and silicon system solutions. News from Philips is located at www.semiconductors.philips.com

About PaySquare
PaySquare is the Dutch specialist partner for the acceptance and issue of international means of payment. On the acceptance market PaySquare is the market leader in the Netherlands, offering MasterCard, Visa, JCB, China UnionPay, Maestro and - thanks to a unique alliance - American Express. This means that businesses have to deal with only one organisation for acceptance of all these products, making PaySquare the first credit card organisation in the Benelux to offer such variety in international means of payment. PaySquare also issues both MasterCard and Visa credit cards, on its own account and in partnership with other organisations. The Red Cross MasterCard, a fundraising credit card for the world's largest relief organisation, is the latest addition to the PaySquare portfolio. More information about PaySquare can be found on www.paysquare.nl.

About CCV Holland B.V.
CCV is an international company with partners all over Europe. The company is specialist in payment terminals, processing and authorizing financial and loyalty transactions and the development and maintenance of loyalty and customer card systems. Based on advanced technololy CCV offers both standard products and specific client fitting solutions. The used hard- and software are developed by CCV-engineers. An own Service Center and a country wide operating service organization garantee a high level support. CCV Holland B.V. is founded in 1967 and located in Arnhem, the Netherlands. For more information: www.ccv.nl

About KPN
KPN offers telecommunication services to both consumers and businesses. The core activities are telephony, Internet and television services in the Netherlands, mobile telecom services in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium and data services in Western Europe. KPN is the market leader in the major segments of the Dutch telecom market and is actively growing its market share in the new IP and DSL markets. Through E-Plus and BASE, KPN occupies a strong position in the mobile markets in Germany and Belgium respectively.
As of March 31, 2006, KPN's 28,647 employees served 6.7 million fixed-line subscribers and 2.2 million Internet customers in the Netherlands as well as 21.6 million mobile customers in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. KPN was privatized in 1989. KPN's shares are listed on the stock exchanges in Amsterdam, New York, London and Frankfurt.