Discover the latest products, technologies and innovations in a fast-paced, interactive format. During the session, tabletop exhibitors will each provide a brief introduction to a featured product, service or technology while attendees rotate through the Exhibit & Networking Area. Attendees will vote to recognize the most outstanding Speed Share presentation.

Participants will also have the opportunity to experience the partly live production and personalization of the official CardTREX event card, creating a unique and memorable takeaway that highlights innovative card manufacturing and personalization technologies. This interactive format allows attendees to explore a wide variety of solutions, engage directly with industry experts, and experience technology in action.

Recharge with coffee while continuing to explore the latest innovations in the Exhibit & Networking Area. Take advantage of this dedicated networking break to reconnect with exhibitors, ask follow-up questions from the morning sessions, discover new products and technologies, and exchange ideas with fellow attendees before the next educational session begins. 

Participants will also continue to have the opportunity to experience the partly live production and personalization of the official CardTREX event card, creating a unique and memorable takeaway that highlights innovative card manufacturing and personalization technologies. This interactive format allows attendees to explore a wide variety of solutions, engage directly with industry experts, and experience technology in action.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often discussed as a tool question: Which system should we use, which process should we automate, which productivity gains can we expect? This talk takes a different position. AI is not primarily a digitization tool. It is a pressure test for the organization itself.

The central question is: What happens to your business model if a competitor, a start-up or two capable operators with agentic systems such as OpenClaw or Claude Code decide to attack it? They do not need to copy the whole company. They can target the fragments that are visible, slow, knowledge-intensive, coordination-heavy or profitable: proposal logic, customer communication, service triage, documentation, planning, reporting, compliance preparation, expert routines or market intelligence.

For executives, this creates a new form of uncertainty. The threat is not only technological. It is organizational. A company may still own its machines, contracts, client relationships and brand, while losing speed and clarity in the workflows where value is created and defended. The decisive question becomes whether management can see these vulnerable workflows, make decisions under incomplete information and rebuild the organization before outsiders turn the weak spots into competing services.

This session presents AI transformation as a management task under uncertainty. It shows how to assess which parts of a business model are exposed to agentic competition, how to distinguish real strategic vulnerability from AI hype, and how to decide what must be rebuilt first. The proposed answer is not another tool rollout, but the development of a digital organizational twin.

The core message is clear: AI does not make management obsolete. It raises the standard for management. Organizations that can model, test and rebuild themselves will gain room to maneuver. Organizations that treat AI as another software project risk discovering too late which parts of their business model were already easy to attack.

Key takeaways:

• Understand AI as a source of business model uncertainty, not as a conventional digitization project.
• Identify which parts of a value chain are most exposed to attack by small agentic teams.
• Distinguish between tool adoption, workflow automation and real organizational transformation.
• Use a digital organizational twin to make decisions, assumptions, handoffs and continuous learning more visible and actionable.
• Build AI readiness as a management capability: faster sensemaking, clearer decisions, controlled experimentation and accountable execution.

Continue the conversation over lunch in the Exhibit & Networking Area! If something you saw during a presentation sparked an idea, raised a question, or inspired a new opportunity, now is the perfect time to connect with the exhibitors. Explore the latest products and technologies, discuss real-world solutions with industry experts, and build valuable relationships in a relaxed networking environment. It's an ideal opportunity to turn conference insights into meaningful conversations and potential business opportunities. 

Participants will also continue to have the opportunity to experience the partly live production and personalization of the official CardTREX event card, creating a unique and memorable takeaway that highlights innovative card manufacturing and personalization technologies. This interactive format allows attendees to explore a wide variety of solutions, engage directly with industry experts, and experience technology in action.

As a global leader in adhesive technology, Lohmann brings more than 170 years of innovation, 1,700 employees and a presence in over 50 countries. From mobility and electronics to healthcare and card manufacturing, Lohmann’s smart bonding solutions drive performance, security and sustainability across industries.

For decades, Lohmann has partnered with card and passport manufacturers to deliver specialized adhesive technologies for secure, durable and high-quality card production.

Experience Smart Adhesive Technology in Action

Experience the next generation of bonding and lamination technologies through expert-led sessions and interactive sessions, including:

• A guided tour of Lohmann’s advanced production facilities
• Live demonstrations of pick-and-place bonding, lamination and simulation tools
• Deep dives into sustainable manufacturing and smart adhesive systems for secure cards and identity documents

At the heart of the event is the Bonding Arena® – Lohmann’s interactive innovation lab – where participants will explore real-time bonding applications and learn how adhesive technologies enhance durability, security and environmental performance in card production.

Keep the conversations going during the afternoon coffee break. Revisit exhibitors that caught your interest, learn more about products and solutions discussed throughout the day, and connect with industry peers in a casual setting. Whether you're looking for answers, inspiration, or your next business partner, this networking break offers another opportunity to make the most of your CardTREX experience. 

Participants will also continue to have the opportunity to experience the partly live production and personalization of the official CardTREX event card, creating a unique and memorable takeaway that highlights innovative card manufacturing and personalization technologies. This interactive format allows attendees to explore a wide variety of solutions, engage directly with industry experts, and experience technology in action.

Eastman’s methanolysis technology advances circularity by breaking down difficult-to-recycle plastics into molecular building blocks that can be used to create virgin-quality materials. The process accepts mixed, colored and opaque PET waste streams, removes impurities and supports recycled content levels of up to 100% without compromising safety, durability or performance. Eastman Renew copolyesters offer a scalable, high-performance card-body solution with strong chemical resistance, design flexibility and proven use by card manufacturers worldwide. By overcoming the quality, contamination, cost and regulatory limitations of many existing sustainable materials, molecular recycling helps divert plastic waste from landfills while supporting closed-loop systems, certified recycled content and the transition to a more circular economy.

This presentation will explore emerging card customization techniques and advanced features that enable distinctive designs, enhanced functionality and premium positioning. Topics will include logo etching, metallization color options, transparent windows in PVC cards, Heavylam solutions for payment and other high-end applications and OneDI, an all-in-one dual-interface module designed to support streamlined card production and performance.

In this session, Edith Dangeard, Director of Business Development at HID Global, will explore innovative materials enhancing smart card durability and security.

Attendees interested in experiencing more of the local area are invited to join an optional guided walk through Andernach. The group will depart from the Parkhotel Andernach at 6:30 p.m. and walk to Casino Ahsenmacher, led by Jan Eller.

This voluntary activity offers an additional opportunity to network while exploring the city.

Included in your registration join us for an evening networking dinner at a special event location, the ‘Casino Ahsenmacher.’  We will enjoy a sensory seminar with live cooking and a talk by a chef and meat sommelier, as well as high-quality wine and food from the open fire. 

At Lohmann, co-creation is rooted in our DNA and part of a strategic approach to transform ideas into business impact. By connecting diverse expertise across customers, partners and innovation networks, we accelerate the journey from concept to commercial success. Recognized this year by the Complexity Academy Aachen as one of only five Successful Practice Companies for its innovation approach, Lohmann will share selected best-practice examples that demonstrate how collaborative innovation is managed and translated into measurable business impact.

Enigma presents the results of project Keeper, a nanotechnology-driven anti-counterfeiting ink  system designed to establish a unique, non-replicable chemical fingerprint for secure documents and cards. While traditional anti-counterfeiting techniques—such as standard holograms and UV inks—rely on visual inspections that are increasingly bypassed by sophisticated forgeries and AI-assisted fraud, Keeper shifts the security paradigm to the molecular level. The core of the technology relies on the engineering of advanced nanotech markers. This solution is highly versatile and adaptable to industrial production: it can be deployed as a standalone proprietary invisible ink or seamlessly integrated directly into a client's existing ink formulations. Beyond the nanomaterials, the Keeper system operates as a comprehensive authentication ecosystem. It incorporates proprietary custom reading hardware and advanced software, both rigorously tested to ensure maximum cybersecurity.

This closed-loop infrastructure safeguards the proprietary verification process as well as the clients' sensitive data. Operating with atomic-level precision, the reading technology is capable of detecting even the slightest compositional mismatch, immediately and definitively identifying counterfeited inks. Ultimately, integrating Keeper’s nanotechnology into card and document manufacturing allows organizations to move beyond vulnerable legacy optical security, ensuring the absolute authenticity of physical assets and effectively protecting personal identities against modern threats.

Recharge with coffee while continuing to explore the latest innovations in the Exhibit & Networking Area. Take advantage of this dedicated networking break to reconnect with exhibitors, ask follow-up questions from the morning sessions, discover new products and technologies, and exchange ideas with fellow attendees before the next educational session begins. 

This shift comes at a time when the meaning of premium banking is evolving too. For decades, premium banking has been built around visible signals of status. Metal cards, concierge services and airport lounge access all served as visible signals of status. Those attributes still matter, but they no longer define premium on their own.

Recent UK consumer research by Copecto found that 67% of consumers believe the products they use should reflect their personal values, while almost two-thirds believe banks should do more to make their products and services sustainable. Customers are no longer judging products solely on how premium they feel. Increasingly, they're also judging what those products say about the organisations behind them.

Premium is becoming less about signaling status and more about communicating quality, authenticity and purpose. That changes how banks should think about payment cards. For years, cards have often been treated as operational products: secure, durable and reliable credentials that enable transactions. Those qualities remain essential. But if premium banking is now expected to communicate values as well as status, then card design becomes more than a manufacturing decision. It becomes part of the premium proposition itself.

Trust Needs to be Tangible
This matters because the changing definition of premium is closely linked to trust. If customers are looking for authenticity and purpose, they also need evidence that those qualities are real.

The research backs this up as it found that consumers are becoming increasingly skeptical of environmental claims. In fact, almost seven in ten consumers suspect brands may use sustainability messaging to greenwash, while more than half say independent certification increases confidence that a product is genuinely sustainable.

This suggests sustainability can no longer rely solely on communications. Customers increasingly expect it to be embedded within the products and experiences they encounter every day. The strongest sustainability claims are often those customers can see for themselves.

Why Materials Matter
One finding from the research illustrates this shift particularly well. Once consumers understood the durability and sustainability credentials of alternative payment card materials, wood emerged as the most preferred material, outpacing both plastic and metal. Interest was strongest among higher-income consumers, the audience banks compete hardest to attract through premium propositions.

The interesting finding wasn't simply that consumers preferred one material over another. It was that their preferences reflected a broader shift in what they associate with premium products. Consumers weren't rejecting premium products. They were redefining what premium means.

Materials that communicate authenticity, craftsmanship and sustainability carry the qualities consumers associate with premium products. For banks, that's a subtle but significant shift.

The banking industry has spent the past decade making banking disappear into the background. That has been a remarkable success. But in doing so, it has increased the importance of the few moments customers still see, touch and remember. Banks have invested heavily in digital experience. The next opportunity may lie in rethinking the physical experience that remains.

The payment card industry is accelerating efforts to reduce its environmental footprint, while an increasing number of polymers are marketed as “sustainable.”

Selecting the most sustainable option is rarely straightforward, as outcomes depend on feedstocks, processing energy, supply reliability, transportation, and realistic end of life pathways. Materials with lower carbon potential may excel in some contexts and underperform in others, so tradeoffs are unavoidable.

As an extrusion manufacturer serving multiple end uses – including payment card bodies – Bixby International takes a material agnostic approach to optimizing solutions, evaluating candidates across recycled thermoplastics, bio-based polymers, bio attributed/mass balance materials, and options enabled by advanced mechanical and chemical recycling.

Sustainable solutions in durable goods applications are accelerated by Bixby's innovative engineering, corporate LEAN, and sustainably focused manufacturing processes driving long-term growth by maximizing efficient use of materials and energy, to minimize waste and cost.

To support consistent comparison of material solutions, this presentation introduces Bixby’s sustainability decision matrix (under development): a criteria based screening tool that uses supplier validated inputs and life cycle assessment (LCA) aligned metrics to evaluate carbon emissions, resource efficiency, end of life fit, and practical considerations such as durability targets and recycling efficiency, with tunable weightings by application or industry.

Using different material options for card bodies, we demonstrate how the matrix enables like for like comparisons, surfaces key sensitivities, and helps prioritize actionable pathways for lower impact cards.

Together, these demonstrations illustrate how a consistent, LCA aligned framework turns sustainability from aspiration into practice – across recycled, bio based, bio attributed, and advanced recycling systems – allowing the payment card industry to progress succeed in innovation through incremental, evidence-based choices.