Nigerian firm SecureID has said it plans to build the first EMV-certified smartcard manufacturing plant in Lagos.The plant will produce SIM cards, payment cards and secure identity cards for telecom companies, banks and public and private industries respectively, with an annual production capacity of 200mn, reported African Review.Omobola Johnson, minister of Communication Technology, has said that the plant will be one of the "most sophisticated" smartcard production units in sub-Saharan Africa.Johnson added that preliminary estimates indicated there are 150mn active SIM cards, 110mn biometric ID cards and 15mn credit and debit cards in Nigeria.Launched in August, the country's eID cards also come equipped with an EMV chip that allows card carriers to access prepaid financial services backed by Nigeria's local Access Bank and MasterCard.The cards also have multiple applications such as biometrics, e-Health, voter-ID, pension-ID, and payment and incorporate 18 security features covering all categories (visible, invisible and forensic features) which make the card immune against tampering and counterfeiting.Earlier this month, Nigeria's Bank of Industry has announced plans to spend 1.1 billion naira (US$6 million) on the development of a profitable smart cards manufacturing sector.Speaking during a tour of SecureID's office in Lagos, Rasheed Olaoluwa, managing director of the BoI, said "the move is targeted at making card solutions for logical data security, physical plant security and integrity processing standards easily accessible in the country to boost the industry".Olaoluwa said SecureID had established capacity and smart manufacturing techniques, adding that "as a customer of our bank, we have supported the business and this shows that the facility has been effectively utilised."

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