Bull turns to pastures new with UK plant opening

NEWS French IT giant Bull is to open a smartcard manufacturing plant in the UK to cater for a growing demand for the technology. The plant in Fareham, Hampshire, will incorporate card manufacturing operations and the development of environmentally friendly manufacturing technologies David Levy, president of Bull's smartcard division, said demand will shoot up this year because the banking community has finally decided to move from the magnetic strip to chip-based technology. Richard Poynder, chairman of the Smartcard Club, said Bull's figures are actually an underestimate. He said: "Currently there are 58.2 million memory only and microprocessor cards in circulation in the UK. We expect this to rise to 227 million by 2003 as the government and banks switch on to this technology." The company predicts there will be almost 50 million cards in circulation in the UK by the start of next year.