Fingerprint Cards and Infineon partner to advance biometric payment cards for mass market

Fingerprint Cards and Infineon have partnered to enable mass deployment of biometric payment cards with fingerprint recognition for contactless payments, by combining their technology for cost-efficient and scalable biometric semiconductor solutions.

The companies tout their leadership in security controllers for contactless payments and fingerprint sensors, including related software.

FPC’s sensor modules will be combined with Infineon’s 40 nm high-performance and energy efficient security controllers based on the 32-bit ARM SC300 SecurCore to support all requirements for biometric payment cards. Fingerprint matching performed within the security controller for data privacy and security, contactless performance that does not suffer for the higher power requirement, and convenient and reliable biometric enrollment are enabled by the partnership, the company’s say.

“Authorizing payments without handing over the card is a huge step forward in terms of user experience, data security and hygiene. We selected Fingerprints as they are the leading biometric silicon and technology provider with market proven performance. Jointly, we want to drive the industrialization of biometric payment cards from a niche into mass market rollout,” comments Bjoern Scharfen, head of the Payment and Transport Ticketing product line at Infineon. “Combining Fingerprints’ leading biometric technology with our expertise in chip security, energy efficiency and contactless performance, we will develop a system solution that is easy to integrate and gives our customers a head start in an emerging growth market.”

Sharfen recently spoke to Biometric Update about the importance of cutting-edge contactless technologies and product integration skill to the mass market adoption of biometric payment cards.

Infineon provides security controllers for roughly every other chip payment card worldwide, according to the announcement, and the company provided chip solutions for major biometric card projects and pilots this year.

“Collaboration is key in the payment ecosystem, in which Infineon is a leading player. Together we will produce an optimized solution that will make it easier for card manufacturers to integrate biometrics into future generations of contactless payment cards, ultimately putting these cards into the hands of consumers around the world to enable a worry-free payment experience,” says Michel Roig, SVP Business Line Payments & Access at Fingerprint Cards.

Fingerprint Cards also announced a partnership with STMicroelectronics to integrate its biometrics with the latter’s chipsets and microcontrollers.

Article Topics

biometric cards  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  contactless biometrics  |  Fingerprint Cards  |  fingerprint sensors  |  Infineon  |  microcontroller  |  stocks