PVC card manufacturing
300μm to 810μm body, PVC / PET / ABS substrates, CMYK + unlimited Pantone, metallic inks, holograms, magstripe HiCo / LoCo.
Shenzhen · 中国 · Est. 2009
Western quality.
Western quality.
中国制造。
One factory floor.
Cardz China is the Shenzhen-based manufacturing arm of the Cardzgroup family — PVC cards, contact and contactless smart cards, RFID inlays, EMV bank cards and printed wearables, made at scale by a Western-owned, bilingual operation in the heart of South China.
600M+
Cards / year, partner-network capacity
30+
Countries shipped — sea & air, ex-Hong Kong
100%
Order-by-order Western/Chinese inspection
2009
First Africa office opened — same year
A short brief A Western-owned card factory operation, sitting one MTR stop from the
A Western-owned card factory operation, sitting one MTR stop from the
Hong Kong border.
Cardzgroup was founded by four Westerners — three of whom previously held senior roles at Gemalto Europe — with a single working idea: marry the production know-how of European card manufacturers with the cost base, talent pool and supply density of Shenzhen.
Cardz China is that idea, on the ground. Bilingual managers walking partner-factory floors. SGS inspection arranged from our Shenzhen office. Air and sea consolidation through Hong Kong. Sister offices in Cape Town, the UK, Pakistan and the HKSAR.
We do not sell to end-users. Our customers are integrators, distributors and brand-owners who need the card supply behind their product — and who would rather a Western team sit between them and the factory floor.
Capabilities at a glance
Manufacturing detail From blank PVC sheet to encoded, packed, FedEx-ready.
Smart cards
Contact and contactless. JCOP Java Card Open Platform from 2009, current MIFARE Classic, Plus, DESFire EV1/EV3, dual-interface bodies, encoding bureau in-house.
RFID & NFC
13.56 MHz HF, 125 kHz LF and UHF inlays. NXP, EM, NTAG families. ISO/IEC 14443A and ISO/IEC 7816-4 compliant assemblies.
Bank cards (EMV)
Visa, MasterCard, EuroPay, debit and ATM bodies. Recognised by Visa and MasterCard card-design and procedure desks across Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia and the Americas.
Wearables & tags
Keyfobs, wristbands, lanyards, labels, custom-moulded tokens. Used in transport, e-government, hospitality, gaming, access control.
Personalisation bureau
Inkjet, drop-on-demand, thermal-rewritable; magstripe and chip encoding; SGS-arranged inspection from our Shenzhen office on request.
How we work
Three founding directors came out of Gemalto. The way we run a job shows it.
Senior management has direct, hands-on experience from Gemalto Europe and from the UK and Australian smart card sectors. The Managing Director speaks fluent Mandarin; every member of the staff is bilingual English/Mandarin. We do not translate between the customer and the factory — we are the bridge.
Every order is overseen by a qualified Cardzgroup production manager with full-time staff stationed at each of our four partner factories. Inspections happen 100%, at every stage — not on a sample. SGS audit can be arranged from our office. Goods consolidate in Hong Kong and ship worldwide by sea or air.
Behind the scenes we use FedEx accounts for couriered samples, give Incoterms options on every quotation, and provide tracking by email on every air and sea shipment. The short version: your cards leave a Western-managed factory floor on the date you were quoted.
- 01Brief — Single English-speaking PM. Specs, artwork, MOQs, encoding.
- 02Quote — Itemised, in your Incoterm. FedEx samples on request.
- 03Pre-press & tooling — Artwork approval. Bilingual proof. SGS optional.
- 04Production — 100% inspection at every stage. Cardzgroup PM on the floor.
- 05Hong Kong consolidation — Air or sea. Tracking by email.
Customer sectors
The cards behind banking, transit, hospitality, retail loyalty, gaming and government ID.
Cardzgroup-produced cards are in use across more than thirty countries. We manufacture for distributors, integrators and brand-owners — not for end users.
Banking
EMV Visa & MasterCard, debit, ATM, retail charge.
Telecommunications
SIM cards, scratch top-up cards, recharge bodies.
Retail & loyalty
PVC loyalty, gift, membership; tested in million-unit rollouts.
Transportation
DESFire-based fare media, contactless transit, ISO 14443A.
Access control
MIFARE Classic, EM4200, T5577, custom keyfobs.
Hospitality & gaming
Hotel keys, casino chips, wristbands, RFID resort solutions (via Cardz Africa).
Government & ID
e-government cards meeting ISO/IEC 7816-4, dual interface.
Education
Library, student-ID, payment-on-card, multi-application.
Selected milestones
A short history, told through orders we remember.
- 2009
Founded — Shenzhen
Cardzgroup Ltd is established by four Westerners. Three founders are from Gemalto Europe; one brings PVC card experience in China.
- 2009
1M PVC loyalty card win — South Africa
Cardzgroup wins a tender for a 1,000,000-unit South African loyalty card programme.
- 2009
JCOP product line introduced
Java Card Open Platform smart cards added — multi-application, dual interface ready.
- 2009
NXP MIFARE DESFire EV1 release
2k / 4k / 8k contactless smartcards added — for transport, e-gov, ID. ISO/IEC 14443A, ISO/IEC 7816-4 compliant.
- 2009
EM4200 added
Read-only RF transponder; replacement for EM4100/4102 and EM4005/4105.
- 2009
Cardzgroup Africa opens — Johannesburg
Sister entity established. Loyalty, ID, telecoms and banking sales support for Sub-Saharan customers.
- 2009
300k MIFARE Classic 1k order
Cardzgroup wins a Western European Sport Association rollout.
- 2011
One-millionth thermal-rewritable card
Production milestone reached at the partner factory.
- 2018
Africa team grows — RFID access control
Cardz Africa hires former HID Global / ASSA ABLOY engineering lead to grow secure access control share.
- 2026
50M+ cards / year output, 600M+ partner capacity
Group-wide annual output passes 50M cards on partner-network capacity of more than 600M cards per year.
Sources: cardzgroup.com news archive, LinkedIn company page, SecuritySA Aug-2018, terrapinn DigitalIDAfrica exhibitor record. See RESEARCH.md for full citations.
Speak to a PM