SecureID Commissions Card Quality Management Test Laboratory

SecureID Commissions Card Quality Management Test Laboratory

Benneth Oghifo

SecureID Limited, one of Africa’s industry leaders in card manufacturing, personalisation and digital solution company has commissioned its fully equipped state-of-the-art Mastercard Card Quality Management (CQM) test laboratory at its facility in Lagos.

The launch took place in Lagos recently. This was described as another first for the company among the other achievements in the past which included the first EMV certified Personalisation Bureau in West Africa; first EMV smartcard manufacturing plant in Sub-Saharan Africa; first SIM card manufacturing plant in West Africa; first and only certified polycarbonate card manufacturing plant in Africa; and first Mastercard Card Quality Management (CQM) certified plant in Nigeria and in fact, Sub Saharan Africa.

The CQM is a separate Mastercard Global Vendor Certification Program (GVCP) that assesses card production quality and compliments the existing site security compliance. CQM is mandatory for vendors that manufacture or personalise chip cards and it promotes high quality, reliability, and compliance with Mastercard card standards.

The objective of CQM scheme is to ensure that the quality of card products sold under the Mastercard brand is properly managed by vendors hence CQM requires compliance with ISO 9001:2015 standards. However, CQM defines requirements beyond ISO 9001, partially due to the fact that ISO is by definition a generic standard and CQM is more precise, as it has a much tighter and better defined perimeter.

The employed processes for qualification are predicated on two Quality Requirements – Product Quality Requirements and Quality Assurance Requirements.

According to the founder and Managing Director of SecureID Limited, Kofo Akinkugbe, “SecureID is a forward thinking company with quality being in our DNA. Without waiting for Mastercard’s deadline of April 2019 for companies to be CQM certified, SecureID achieved the certification late in 2017 in record time.

“SecureID’s adherence to CQM standards gives our customers the assurance that our products would not fail in the field (shipment, distribution, usage). They would maintain functional and operational robustness during and beyond their expected or designed lifetime.

“Our products are resistant to electrostatic discharge, card bending or torsion, abrasion, chemicals, temperature and humidity, mechanical stress, chip module extraction and so on.

“Our customers can have peace of mind that the cards in the hands of their cardholders would not fail when they need it most. Such reliability and quality is what SecureID is well known for.

“Note that SecureID is already certified by Mastercard, Verve International, Visa International and ISO 9001/2015 for Smart Card Manufacturing and Personalisation. SecureID is also PCI Card Production and Provisioning complaint.”

“At Mastercard, our certification programs ensure that our partners are up to speed with our innovations to better serve our customers. With the achievement of the CQM certification and the availability of a dedicated test lab, SecureID can now provide services to our customers that were previously sourced outside the country.

We applaud their foresight in making this investment in providing improved quality services to their customers and we are pleased to have partnered with them to achieve this,” MasterCard’s Vice President and Area Business Head for West Africa, Omokehinde Adebanjo said.

Related Articles