SICPA, an overview

About SICPA

Founded in 1927 in Lausanne, SICPA is a Swiss family-owned technology company with an international footprint, operating sites, production facilities and Centres of Excellence on all 5 continents, whose purpose is to Enable Trust through constant innovation. SICPA offers state-of-the-art technologies based on a unique expertise combining material and digital security features. With over 3,000 people from more than 75 nationalities globally, SICPA's employees have a wide range of expertise and cover many technical and scientific disciplines, such as chemistry, physics, optics, mechanics, cryptology and IT. With strong innovation capabilities, the company holds more than 5,000 patents.

Market leader of ink-based security features for banknotes, identity and value documents, SICPA is a long-trusted partner to governments, central banks and high security printers. The company protects the majority of the world’s banknotes including leading currencies such as the euro, US dollar and Swiss franc.

SICPA is also a leading provider to governments of unique direct marking solutions for secured authentication, identification and traceability of products. SICPA hence marks billions of products annually, notably excise goods such as tobacco and alcohols, but also soft drinks, medicine and cosmetics. As a result, illicit trade can be more effectively tackled, and millions of extra tax revenues are collected around the world. The deployment of SICPA’s solutions is regularly highlighted as best practice due to their positive impact by supranational bodies such as the IMF or the World Bank.

According to the World Health Organisation, illicit trade generates an annual loss of tax revenues from tobacco and alcoholic beverages of $50 billion and $28 billion respectively, while the equivalent of $133 billion worth of fuel is adulterated or diverted from legitimate distribution channels, generating tax losses for governments. SICPA's robust solutions, built on the company's decades of experience and innovation in physical and digital security solutions, effectively address these challenges.

« Enabling trust through constant innovation » - Philippe Amon, CEO and Chairman

Leveraging its robust expertise in marking and authenticating products, the company offers similar Brand Protection solutions for private companies, thereby also protecting their customers from illicitly traded and counterfeited products. In addition, SICPA proposes a best-in-class molecular fuel marking solution, with proprietary real-time detection capability provided by a mobile lab to fight fuel frauds. The company also offers specific applications to enable trust in the digital world through forgery-proof digital seal technology that caters to a diverse range of challenges such as protecting land registries, electoral integrity, health documents or diplomas.

As physical and digital interactions merge and present new challenges for our society, SICPA aims to further an Economy of Trust worldwide, where transactions, interactions and products across the physical and digital worlds are based on protected, unforgeable and verifiable data. The company is hence building the unlimitrust campus in Prilly, Switzerland, a centre of excellence that will establish an innovation-driven environment and a dynamic community of start-ups, corporations, investors and academics that will foster new ideas, partnerships and developments of trust technologies. Supported by the EPFL Innovation Park and the Canton de Vaud, it will be inaugurated in June 2023.

In 2022, SICPA was given the Vaud International Business Award by the Vaud Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CVCI) in the category "Swiss Company". The purpose of this award is to highlight the contribution of international companies to the reputation of the Canton de Vaud, the diversification they bring and their positive impact on the economy.

As part of its commitment to doing business with integrity, SICPA is a founding member of the Banknote Ethics Initiative (BnEI) and was one of the first companies in its industry to be ISO 37001:2016 (anti-bribery management) certified. SICPA seeks to continuously enhance its environmental and social performance across its entire value chain, in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. SICPA has been committed to the UN Global Compact principles since 2016.