Swiss Wood Solutions secures partner for wooden payment cards

DG Nexolution has acquired a stake in Swiss Wood Solutions AG, headquartered in Altdorf in the canton of Uri in the Greater Zurich Area. The payment transaction card specialist based in the German city of Wiesbaden intends to launch on the market the plastic-free and biodegradable wooden payment cards developed by the spin-off from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa). DG Nexolution describes the card as a “world first” in its press release. Now, the attention of both partners will turn to establishing a joint venture.

The wooden card is currently being used in a pilot project with the ecologically and socially oriented GLS Bank in Germany. Feedback has been “consistently positive”, according to the press release. In terms of commercializing the card, DG Nexolution will look towards its traditional customer base, Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks, goods and service cooperatives as well as companies in the cooperative network.

However, this cooperation will “open doors to new, international markets for both companies”, comments Dr. Oliver Kläusler, CEO of Swiss Wood Solutions, in the press release. As a specialist for card systems and personalization solutions, Raiffeisendruckerei will play a central role in the area of production.

Swiss Wood Solutions was founded in 2016. The start-up primarily develops sustainable alternatives to endangered tropical wood for use in musical instruments, for example. The product Swiss Ebony is made from modified Swiss sycamore maple to offer the properties of ebony. The project was advanced in collaboration with the Gebert Rüf Foundation. Two other projects, TEEWood and RETWood, received financial backing from various EU funding programs. The Impulse Project Deep Learning is being supported by Innosuisse, the Swiss Innovation Agency. mm