Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) is a leading international technology provider headquartered in Munich, Germany. It is a technology group with roots in Germany and global operations. The company has been family-owned for six Generations since 1852. The G&D Group, based in Munich/Germany, comprises over 49 subsidiaries and joint ventures across 30 countries, employing 10,122. In the financial year 2009 the group generated sales worth 1.7 billion Euros (2.04 billion dollars). Founded in 1852, today G&D is a global market leader and pioneering innovator in banknote production and processing, smart card solutions for telecommunications and electronic payment, and security documents and identification systems. From the very start, G&D innovationsincluding the first smart card in 1968have helped to ensure the security of electronic payments. In the field of telecommunications, the company delivered the worlds first commercial SIM cards for a GSM network in 1991. Then as now, the Group plays an active role in all the main card standardization organizations, enabling customers worldwide to benefit from interoperable products and solutions.
The R&D Centre at Pune in India is the second largest global R&D centre in the world for G&D. The Pune centre plays a major role in products leading to revenue of ~250 Mio Euro for the parent group. As a high-technology enterprise, this R&D centre gives high priority to research and development, utilizing a part of the global R&D investment of 93.7 Mio Euro in these activities. The Centre provides End to End Solutions for Contact, Contactless, and dual interface Smart Cards for Mobile SIM, Credit, Debit cards, mobile payments and automotive smart card solutions.
The R&D centre in India proudly plays a leading role for G&D as one of the worlds leading producers of SIM cards for cell phone systems and a major global provider of chip-based credit and debit cards for electronic payment. In addition the products in India are certified by MasterCard, Visa, and other major chip card associations.