Matica Brand Guidelines: Milan Card Embossers, a German ID Printer and Identis

Embossers in Milan, then a German partner.

Matica began with embossers. A company history presentation published by its chief executive Sandro Camilleri says Matica System was established in Milan in 1992 to make metal plate embossers, and that by 2003 it had a range of desktop card embossers, the Z1, Z2 and Z3, for finance and healthcare cards. The same presentation says Camilleri acquired Matica System in 2007 and began a research programme on card issuance systems, and that in 2007 the company bought the business branches of the Austrian firm Digicard and the Italian Fractalos Card Lab, both specialists in high-volume card issuance. These dates are the company’s own account.

The German side came next. The presentation says Matica System took a stake in Digital Identification Solutions AG, known as DISO, in 2011; DISO supplied systems for ID cards, passports and visas under its EDIsecure brand. In September 2013 the industry association Silicon Trust reported that Digital Identification Solutions AG would operate under the new name Matica Technologies AG, completing the integration of the German retransfer and secure ID printer business with the Italian maker of centralised high-speed systems, mailers and desktop machines. Camilleri said the new name formalised a shift in strategy “underway since we acquired DISO.” The report said the new name took effect at once, while other elements of the new brand identity would be phased in over the following year.

The company says it moved the legal seat and headquarters of Matica Technologies AG to Munich in December 2015. A 2017 announcement of a partnership with the Turin check-scanner maker Panini, published on GlobeNewswire, described the Matica Group as headquartered in Munich, with offices in Italy, Germany, France, Singapore, China, the United States and the United Arab Emirates.

Desk printers, central systems and a listing.

Matica’s range follows a card from blank to personalised. The 2017 company description lists centralised issuance systems and mailers alongside desktop ID card printers, for credit and debit cards, national and corporate ID cards, passports, healthcare and transport cards. It names colour and monochrome direct-to-card and retransfer printing, laser engraving, and embossing and indenting among its personalisation methods. The company presentation dates its first in-house direct-to-card printers, the Espresso and Moca, to the Cartes trade show of 2013, and the S3500 instant-issuance system to Cartes 2014. It lists the K3 kiosk card printer for self-service use in 2015 and the XL8300, a retransfer printer for oversized cards, in 2016, and says that in October 2016 Matica took a majority of Problem Solved, a maker of core banking software and a browser-based instant card issuance system.

The same product families now appear on the website of Identis, the group’s current name: the S-series of centralised systems, such as the S5200 and S7000, the MC series of desktop printers, and the XID8300 retransfer printer. The site groups them under secure ID and payment, alongside consumables sold under the chromXpert name and Xpressi issuance software.

The Italian business went to the stock market. Borsa Italiana announced on 11 November 2019 that Matica Fintec S.p.A., which it described as designing, developing and selling technology for digital payment and e-identity, mainly for financial and government institutions, had been admitted to its AIM Italia market for small and medium-sized companies, with Camilleri as chief executive and chairman. Matica Fintec gives its operating base as Galliate, near Novara, with its registered office in Milan.

Screening and identity hardware.

Security screening and identity hardware is mostly seen in passing: the X-ray tunnel at an airport checkpoint, the arch a traveller walks through, the grey trays that slide back along a roller track. The companies that make this equipment sell to airports, customs services, border agencies, banks and governments rather than to the public, and their brands are built for procurement teams, regulators and trade-fair visitors.

Their imagery follows the equipment. Websites and brochures show security lanes with scanner tunnels and conveyor belts, walk-through metal detectors, cargo portals and gantries that a lorry drives through, and the operator screens on which bags appear as layered X-ray images. Identity makers work at a different scale: card printers small enough for an office desk, and the production lines on which passports, bank cards and ID cards are made and personalised.

Much of the business is about approvals and contracts. Makers name the regulators whose lists or standards their machines appear on, such as the US Transportation Security Administration or the European Civil Aviation Conference, and announce orders airport by airport and agency by agency. New products are shown at trade fairs such as Passenger Terminal Expo for airport equipment and Security Essen in Germany, where screening, access-control and identity companies exhibit side by side.

Ownership in this field changes often. Some of the makers in this guide were built from acquisitions or sit inside larger listed groups, and some have changed hands recently: Smiths Detection passed from Smiths Group to CVC Capital Partners in June 2026. This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it and where it says its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Panini, a new group name and a product brand.

The group then grew by acquisition. Matica Fintec’s website announces its purchase of the card-personalisation software maker UbiQ and of NBS Technologies. In September 2025 Biometric Update reported that Matica Fintec had acquired Panini, the Turin-based maker of payments-processing and check-scanning technology, from SETA Holding, with terms not disclosed; the report described Matica as a publicly traded company offering digital identity software, ID card printers and card issuance software.

Then the group changed its name. On 3 December 2025 Shape Finance reported that the Matica Group had rebranded as Identis, presenting the new name at the Trustech trade show. Camilleri, as chief executive of Identis, said the group was built on Matica, Panini and UbiQ together with its secure ID business, and the report described Identis as family-owned. The Identis website names Identis SA, with its registered office in Zug, Switzerland, and a branch in Lugano. Shape Finance put the Identis portfolio at about 100 solutions across secure ID and payments, with offices in Europe, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and China.

In December 2025 Identis announced an investment in the American mobile-identity company Credence ID, and from 1 October 2026 it brought Panini, Matica Corp, UbiQ and NBS together as Identis North America. Matica remains as a product name: an October 2026 Identis case study describes a card personalisation centre “powered by Matica.”

For a design guide, Matica shows how a maker’s name can live on as a product brand once the group around it takes a new one. Compare Evolis, the French card-printer maker, and Entrust, which kept the Datacard name on its card machines. For this guide we use a deep teal, graphite and a copper with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Matica’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.