The KOMSCO (Korea Minting, Security, Printing & ID Card Operating Corporation) has announced on July 16 that is actively paving the way into the international market to reach its goal of becoming the world's top corporation for protecting transactions and authenticity.
KOMSCO is currently exporting a wide range of products including electronic national ID cards, electronic passports, banknotes, banknote paper (special security paper), and coinage. Exporting products are cotton pulp, which is base materials for banknote paper, celebration medals and coinage, silver medals for investment purposes, special security ink, and such. In 2017, KOMSCO's international sales reached KRW 58.7 billion.
While coinage output has been gradually declining as society transitions into a coinless system, KOMSCO has seen a rise in sales and operating profit for the past 4 consecutive years and exports are all time high.
The success is due to KOMSCO targeting the international market. In March of last year, KOMSO supplied 3 million electronic National ID cards (e-NID) to Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan initiated the e-NID project to secure a national identification system and operate an electronic government. The e-NIDs contain an IC chip on the front that stores personal information such as nationality and fingerprint, and a bar code is attached to the back like the Korean passport. Personal information can easily be accessed when the card is inserted into a reader.
In December of the same year, KOMSCO received an order for IC chipsets from a Middle Eastern nation. The chipset that will be exported is a national ID card product mounted with JK21, a Chip Operating System (COS) that was independently developed by KOMSCO. COS is an embedded software (operating system) that controls and manages the IC chips built in smart cards -- ID cards, finance, transportation, and transmission cards -- and prevents forgery of key data to provide high-level security and reliability.
