Card Manufacturers: Cost Index
- The Trade Association for Card Manufacturers and Personalisers (AFPC) published a new document aimed at measuring the evolution of annual card production costs in France.
- This index will be updated every year at the end of the first quarter.
- Some information contained in the 2011 publication was already made available even though the 2010/2009 index has not yet been released. According to the AFPC, cards production and customisation costs have increased 1.5% since 2007.
- This calculation results from an analysis of the card’s main costs and takes into account the material (PVC, gold, etc.), labour cost and electronic components. The association will distinguish the cost of magnetic stripe card and smartcards.
- Card manufacturers are now threatened by competition from emerging countries but intend to maintain their strategic advantage based on their skills, ability to innovate and high quality service offer. This new index, which does not take into account any notion of competition, clearly shows that card manufacturers must resolve a complex equation. The significant part of employees’ wages in the final cost of the card illustrates that customisation processes should be optimised to save funds. The significant growth in card demand directly impacts the industrial workload as more products they must delivered before the same deadline, or even within shorter periods of time (see, for instance, Gemalto’s commitment to replace MasterCard Premium cards in maximum 24 hours).