Access-IS Limited develops and manufactures electronic systems designed to accurately capture and transfer information into electronic systems based on 30 years’ experience in image processing,

RFID Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder called a tag, a radio receiver, and a transmitter. When tri ...

/ NFC technology and

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, Machine-readable data, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly ref ...

reading. Access-IS also manufactures specialist keyboards for banking and PoS (

Point of Sale The point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice f ...

) applications. Operating in over 72 countries Access-IS is focussed on three specialised verticals; Airline/Airport, ID Document Readers & Security and Transport Ticketing. In addition to its custom keyboards which are used by banks,

trading floor Open outcry is a method of communication between professionals on a stock exchange or futures exchange, typically on a trading floor. It involves shouting and the use of hand signals to transfer information primarily about buy and sell orde ...

s, airlines and retailers, the product range also includes boarding gate readers, a range of document readers for ID document and age verification and paper and electronic ticket readers for ground transport and access control. Access-IS has its headquarters in

Reading, Berkshire Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, England, and the county town of Berkshire. It is the United Kingdom's largest town, with a combined population of 355,596. Most of Reading built-up area, its built-up area lies within the Borough ...

, UK, with approximately 60 salaried staff. Access-IS is the trading name of Access Limited.

Background to the name

Access-IS is an abbreviation of 'Access Interfacing Solutions'. Originally Access Keyboards Limited, the company was renamed Access Ltd and adopted the brand name Access IS in October 2007 to reflect the broader product offering the company offered. The new logo device was intended to allude to the company's history in keyboard design by using the shape of a keyboard

return key On computer keyboards, the enter key and return key are two closely related keys with overlapping and distinct functions dependent on operating system and application software, application. Functions The return key has its origins in two typ ...

. The two interlocking shapes that make up the logo device was intended to represent the process of interfacing to pass data between systems, or between media and host systems.

Technology

Optical character recognition Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronics, electronic or machine, mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo ...

reading,

MICR Magnetic ink character recognition code, known in short as MICR code, is a character recognition technology used mainly by the banking industry to streamline the processing and clearance of cheques and other documents. MICR encoding, called the ...

Magnetic stripe card The term digital card can refer to a physical item, such as a memory card on a camera, or, increasingly since 2017, to the digital content hosted as a virtual card or cloud card, as a digital virtual representation of a physical card. They shar ...

reading, biometric fingerprint readers,

smart card A smart card (SC), chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card), is a card used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an Embedded system, embedded integrated circuit (IC) chip. Many smart ...

and

contactless smart card A contactless smart card is a contactless credential whose dimensions are credit card size. Its embedded integrated circuits can store (and sometimes process) data and communicate with a terminal via NFC. Commonplace uses include transit ticket ...

reading, e-passport decoding and reading, bar code scanners and airport boarding gate readers.

History

1980s

1984 - The company was incorporated in December 1984 and was wholly owned by the Videcom Group of companies. Access IS (then named Access Keyboards) began trading January 1985.
1989 - Became authorised distributor for Cherry keyboards.

1990s

1992 - Gained

ISO 9001 The ISO 9000 family is a set of international standards for quality management systems. It was developed in March 1987 by International Organization for Standardization. The goal of these standards is to help organizations ensure that they meet ...

accreditation.
1994 - Became autonomous in 1994 after a management buy-out with funding provided by 3i.
1997 - First programmable point of sale keyboards launched.

2000 onwards

2004 - 3i's shares were sold back to the company.
2006 - Access manufacture BGR (boarding gate readers).
2007 - Subsidiary established in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

.
2007 - Access Keyboards Limited renamed Access Limited, and began trading as Access-IS.
2009 - Access-IS gained ISO 9001:2008. (Certificate No. 21703)
2011 - Access-IS released a range of ID Document Readers for document authentification
2014 - The

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

accredited two Access-IS electronic passport readers for use by

Hajj Hajj (; ; also spelled Hadj, Haj or Haji) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for capable Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetim ...

and

Umrah The Umrah () is an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest city for Muslims, located in the Hejazi region of Saudi Arabia. It can be undertaken at any time of the year, in contrast to the '' Ḥajj'' (; "pilgrimage"), which has specific d ...

tour operators and agents worldwide to process the passports of pilgrims. 2015 - The owners sold the company and was refinanced by

private equity Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public; instead it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the co ...

partners.
2020: HID Global acquired Access-IS from private equity partners.

Products

* Airports/Airline – Access-IS designs and manufactures technology for reading barcodes, RFID/NFC and passports/ID cards for a range of applications from check-in to boarding. * ID & Security - Products include; e-Passport, e-ID and e-Driving License readers for Government and Commercial applications. From small OEM OCR readers (for integration into mobile devices) to full/half page passport readers, Access-IS products are designed for applications such as; Border Control, Immigration, Document Issuance, Law Enforcement, Banking, Gaming, Retail, KYC and Anti-Money Laundering etc. * Transport Ticketing - Barcode and RFID/NFC readers for self-service

data capture Automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) refers to the methods of automatically identifying objects, collecting data about them, and entering them directly into computer systems, without human involvement. Technologies typically considered ...

applications products include; ticket readers and validators for public transport systems, event and stadium entrance and exit as well as other applications.

References

External links

*{{Official website, www.hidglobal.com/access-is Computer companies of the United Kingdom Computer hardware companies Computer peripheral companies Electronics companies of the United Kingdom Computer companies established in 1984