Swiss Wood Solutions finds partner for wooden payment cards

The German DG Nexolution is acquiring shares in Swiss Wood Solutions. Together, the two partners want to market the Empa spin-off's global novelty internationally: a plastic-free and biodegradable wooden card for payment transactions.

DG Nexolution is acquiring shares in Swiss Wood Solutions AG, based in Altdorf in the canton of Uri in the Greater Zurich Area. The Wiesbaden-based payment card specialist plans to commercialize the plastic-free and compostable wooden body for payment cards and other applications developed by the spin-off from Empa. DG Nexolution calls it "a world first" in its media release. Now the two partners plan to form a joint venture.

The wooden card is currently in use in a pilot project at the ecologically and socially oriented German GLS Bank. Feedback has been "consistently positive." For its marketing, DG Nexolution is targeting its traditional clientele, the Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken, goods and service cooperatives, and companies in the cooperative network.

But this cooperation "also opens the doors to new, international markets for both companies," Swiss Wood Solutions CEO Dr. Oliver Kläusler is quoted as saying. As a specialist in card systems and personalization solutions, Raiffeisendruckerei will play an important pioneering role in production.

Swiss Wood Solutions was founded in 2016. The start-up primarily develops sustainably produced alternatives to endangered tropical wood, such as for use in musical instruments. Its product Swiss Ebony is made from modified Swiss sycamore maple, but offers the properties of ebony. The project was advanced with the Gebert Rüf Foundation. Two other projects, TEEWood and RETWood, received funding from various EU grant programs. The Impulse Project Deep Learning is accompanied by Innosuisse.

Source: Punkt4