Novoflex

06.14.2021

As a former payments executive with Visa and First Data, Rob Chen brings deep global experience working with banks, issuers, and fintechs in marketing and launching new innovations.  

What is Novoflex?

Novoflex is a leading provider of smart card technologies and solutions for industries ranging from banking and payments to telecommunications.

From our roots in Singapore manufacturing and assembling IC (integrated circuit) chip modules for smart card manufacturers, we’ve developed proprietary and patented solutions like sAiL (Secure Authenticable Identification Laminates) to better serve the needs of our expanding global customer base.

How did it all start?

As with all great businesses, we believe it’s all about serving the needs of our customers and the market.  We work with partners like smart card manufacturers to deliver our smart chip solutions to banks and issuers.  With the global growth of bankcards containing smart chips (EMV), mandated by payment networks like Visa and Mastercard, we saw an opportunity to create a new solution that is not only secure, but also flexible and customizable.

Why is sAiL so special?

We enable issuers to have custom shaped or designed smart chips on their credit, debit, or prepaid cards!  On a form factor with limited real estate and a lot of competitive demands for branding and marketing, this is a meaningful benefit to banks and issuers.   With Novoflex sAiL, rather than having to design card artwork around the traditional square chip, now issuers can integrate chip design into their branding and marketing platform and better connect with their consumers.  Examples of this would be soccer or footballs for sports related co-branded cards, or logos related to the issuer or marketing campaign.  This type of improved affinity with consumers ultimately allows banks to further differentiate beyond the baseline value proposition of interest rates and rewards to drive preference for their cards.  

All of this is on top of the fact that sAiL is a more secure solution.  So instead of a traditional chip module that is glued into the cavity on a plastic card, this is an laminate inlay layer which is much more secure and cannot be removed.  

With all the different technology providers in the smart card market, what differentiates Novoflex?

We are a proven leader in the marketplace and today deliver more than 500 million bankcard chip modules across our full range of contact and contactless smart card solutions in more than 70 countries globally.  In that time, we’ve established an ecosystem of technology, channel and alliances partners to better support our customers.  

We also have a great team that is passionate about serving the needs of our customers and together with our investor Novo Tellus, we are committed to continuing to drive new payment innovations to market.

Novoflex is a leader in Asia today, what’s next?

We have just launched several pilots of our proprietary sAiL solution in Asia and are expanding our presence in the US.  We are excited about the prospect of bringing our innovations to market with new customers who want to boost their differentiation though card marketing and look forward to engaging with channel partners and customers!