OREANDA-NEWS. August 16, 2010. SITRONICS (SITRONICS or the “Group”) (LSE: SITR), a leading provider of telecommunications, information technology and microelectronic solutions in Russia and the CIS, announces that its subsidiary LLC SITRONICS Smart Technologies has won a tender for card personalization and blank card delivery services for Sberbank Russia – largest credit institution in Russia and CIS, accounting for about a quarter of the aggregate Russian banking assets and a third of banking capital.

This is one of the first examples of outsourcing card personalization functions in Russia. Usually the banks use their own personalization offices resources. The banks abroad implement the service outsourcing practice actively and successfully. Rejecting non-core services, financial institutions reduce their costs and have the opportunity to concentrate on their basic business. Card personalization outsourcing is the most profitable for the banks with vast branch offices network and large volumes of emission.

In course of the tender Sberbank's experts conducted thorough and comprehensive audits of SITRONICS' production sites, having paid particular attention to security systems organization. Special demands were also made on the clients' private data security. Following the tender's results it was decided to delegate to SITRONICS the authority to personalize the magnetic cards for Sberbank.

SITRONICS utilizes technologies that meet international standards. All the production and personalization processes are licensed by international payment systems Visa International and MasterCard Worldwide and are conducted using the advanced equipment and technologies.

"We have the extensive card personalization experience. In 2009 we personalized 31 million smart cards, - says Vice-President on Sales of SITRONICS Alexander Krasovsky. – "Card personalization outsourcing will allow Sberbank to speed up the process of granting cards to its clients."