Oberthur Card Systems is to partner Welcome Real-time to supply EMV card solutions to Italian banks and financial institutions.
The Oberthur and Welcome solution will enable card issuers to add loyalty services to existing EMV cards.
Philippe Vinci, Welcome EMEA CEO, says: "Italian banks will be able to leverage their upcoming EMV infrastructures through easy-to-deploy value-added services."
Oberthur says that the Italian market has 33 million cards in circulation and is one of the biggest in Western Europe. Following the UK, Italy is the second country to migrate to EMV smart cards.