DANIDA supports ICPS with $3.5m printing equipment

Ms Margit Thompson, the Danish Ambassador to Ghana, has handed over a $3.5 million state of the art card and security printing equipment to Intelligent Card Production Systems (ICPS) to enhance the company's operations.

The equipment, funded by the Danida Mixed Credit (DMC), is part of a $10 million ICPS project that has enabled ICPS to significantly upgrade its security and printing facilities in security printing, manufacturing of documents and cards, identity solutions and secured applications.

The equipment was handed over to the ICPS group during a visit of the Danish Ambassador and some Ministers of State to the company in Accra, on Thursday.

The support under the DMC facility will see ICPS undertake the printing of full range security documents, personalized ID cards, as well as fully configured data card personalization systems that will see a transformational change in the card manufacturing company's technical capability.

Ms Thompson also pledged her support to the ICPS Margins Group to enable it to meet its goal of being the first and only full serviced Ghanaian owned company certified in card and security printing in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Mr Moses K. Baiden, the Chief Executive Officer of ICPS, said the objective of the visit was to close the equipment gap in ICPS; to enable it to complete its certification for manufacturing, personalization and fulfilment of Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (EMV) cards and secured government Electronic ID cards for all purposes, meeting international standards.

He said the occasion was also to showcase ICPS’ factory and capacity, and the expanded AFIS and central site of the National Identification Authority, (NIA), which has been developed jointly with Dermalog Identification Systems in Germany, the leader in Biometrics together with IDFG of Denmark.

This, he explained, would ultimately enable the factory to become the only factory in Ghana certified for the manufacturing and production of Europay, MasterCard and Visa and other high security internationally certified documents.

Mr Baiden noted that, despite the fact that some DANIDA funded projects in Ghana had failed, the success of the Margins ID Group proved that DANIDA’s efforts, had been crucially significant in the private sector in Ghana.

He expressed the organisation’s gratitude to the Danish government, the Embassy of Denmark in Ghana and other partners for their immense belief in ICPS’ vision and enormous contribution to the vision of Margins Group.

Ms Hannah Tetteh, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, said the introduction of a card production system in the country would help the government save cost of producing ID cards outside the country.

She revealed government's intention to make new biometric cards for its citizens to meet the standard in quality, adding that, ICPS would be of very great help to the nation.

She advised staff of ICPS to take advantage of the many opportunities availed to them and urged the general public to work together with the government to make the organisation a premium card production system across many continents.

Dr Rashid Pelpuo, the Minister of State for Public Private Partnership (PPP), said the changing phase of investments in the country has made PPP a crucial force to reckon with to boost the county's economy.

He said the sector would always support ICPS because it has proven its capability and competence to develop the nation.

The ICPS was also supported in its journey by many financial institutions, including Cal Bank, Access Bank, Stanbic Bank, Barclays Bank and Bank of Africa.

Representatives of the Banks pledged their support to ICPS and their preparedness to work with the organisation to achieve positive outcomes.

With a production capacity for the card manufacturing and personalization of up to 60 million cards per year, over 21 million 1D cards per year and over 51 million Intelligent Card Production Systems, (ICPS) a subsidiary of the Margin Group, is the first ISO 9001-2008 certified full service Card Manufacturing facility from card fabrication to fulfilment.

ICPS provides cards to Africa and the world, governments, institutions, organisations, corporate, non-governmental organisations and associations with Demographic ATM Personalization capacity.