Idex Biometrics, Egis, Goodix, FPC fight for share in growing biometric card and mobile device markets

Biometrics stocks news this week includes a new biometric payment card partnership for Idex Biometrics, a suit filed by Egis against Goodix, and some market projections from Fingerprint Cards. Meanwhile, secunet has joined the Frankfurt Stock Exchange’s SDAX, and Plurilock has launched its stock for public investment in Canada.

Idex signs new biometric card manufacturing partnership

Smart card and software-maker Ubivelox and Idex Biometrics have formed a strategic partnership to build and market a complete biometric payment card solution for Ubivelox’ customer base of more than 140 companies across the Asia-Pacific region, and those that issue Mastercard and Visa in particular.

A secure element from an unnamed international provider with integrated power management, along with the TrustedBio fingerprint biometric-sensor-on-chip will be used in the design. Idex Biometrics has an established partnership with secure element provider Infineon.

“This represents yet another significant step forward for IDEX and provides extensive coverage in Asia, outside of China, through an established and trusted partner with EMV certification for Mastercard, Visa, JCB and American Express (and separately for UnionPay),” comments Vince Graziani, CEO, IDEX Biometrics. “Ubivelox provides smart cards, card operating systems and payment applets which perfectly complement our new generation of TrustedBio fingerprint sensors, matcher and enrollment solutions.”

“Given the market pull for biometric payment cards and the compelling cost model of our combined solutions this relationship is of strategic importance to Ubivelox and will drive additional growth,” says KB Koo, general manager of Ubivelox’ IC Security Technology Centre. “IDEX’s TrustedBio fingerprint sensors offer industry leading performance, security and manufacturability.”

Shipments to card integrators are planned for the first quarter of 2021.

Idex has published an ebook titled “Biometric cards poised to become a mainstream payment product” to educate industry stakeholders on the background to Chip & PIN migration, the evolution towards contactless payments, the initial impact of COVID-19, preventing fraud with lost and stolen cards, and the future of payments. The company’s SVP of Sales and Marketing David Orme has authored a blog post on the place of biometric payment cards in the evolving payments ecosystem.

The company also gave a presentation to Nordic investment bank ABG Sundal Collier on the evolution of fingerprint biometric payment cards, the potential market and Idex’ place in it. For banks and issuers, Idex says benefits from issuing a million biometric payment cards could include net cash flow gains of $8 million to $16 million from loss prevention, increased revenue over cash transaction, ‘top of wallet’ effect, account growth and card fees.

Beginning in 2021, the company sees the average price for biometric cards declining to eventually fall below $5, and the market adoption rate rising towards 50 percent.

Egis and Goodix renew legal battle

The court battle between Goodix and Egis Technology is continuing with a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Egis in Beijing court, according to the Taipei Times.

Egis is seeking to halt Goodix’ production of covered products, the destruction of those already made, and 90 million yuan (US$13.24 million) in damages.

Last year Egis spent roughly 20 percent of its total revenue on research and development of fingerprint technology.

A Goodix patent was ruled invalid by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) in February, and a complaint it had brought against Egis on the basis of that patent was dismissed in March.

Taiwanese chip-maker MediaTek is planning to reduce its stake in Goodix by 2 percent from 9.29 percent over the coming months, according to the report.

Meanwhile, a chip for large-area in-display fingerprint sensing on electronic devices has been co-developed by Egis and Innolux, and will likely be validated in the fourth quarter, DigiTimes reports.

Egis is also part of the AI-on-Chip Taiwan Alliance (AITA), which recently held its first-anniversary member convention in Taipei.

Goodix, for its part, has announced it is providing its optical in-display fingerprint sensor for the new Samsung Galaxy S20 FE, according to a company Tweet. The same technology is in the Galaxy Tab S7+ tablets, while the Tab S7 integrates a side-mounted fingerprint sensor from the company, according to a press release.

Fingerprint Cards reviews potential of three target markets

Fingerprint Cards sees a potential total addressable market of roughly 800 million biometric sensor units by 2026 from the mobile and PC market, according to a corporate communication on the company’s competitive position and the long-term development of its target markets.

In the payments area, the addressable market will be roughly half of some 6 billion payment devices, which the newest version of FPC’s T-Shape sensor positions the company to address by bringing the cost for volume production below $3 per unit.

In access control, Fingerprint Cards estimates the market will exceed 100 million units by 2026.

secunet listed to Germany’s SDAX

Secunet has cracked the top 150 largest publicly traded companies in Germany with the growth of its biometrics and IT security technology business, and accordingly been admitted to the SDAX index.

“We are very pleased to be admitted to the SDAX. The admission to the SDAX represents an important milestone in our company’s stock market story,” states secunet CEO Axel Deininger.

Plurilock joints Canadian venture exchange

Plurilock has joined the Toronto Stock Exchange Venture Exchange (TSXV) under the symbol “PLUR” to raise funds for its enterprise behavioral biometric authentication business.

“We are excited to begin trading on the TSXV at the opening of the market today. This represents a key milestone in our development,” says Ian L. Paterson, CEO of Plurilock Security Inc. “When we launched our products in 2017, we set out to transform the cybersecurity market by developing advanced behavioral-biometric technology. Since then, we have made significant progress in growing our customer base, strengthening our operations, assembling a world class team, and putting ourselves in a position to scale our organization and become a leader in the authentication market. As we embark on this next chapter of growth, we look forward to sharing our developments with our current and future shareholders.”

Customers of Plurilock include the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Army and major banks, according to the announcement.

Article Topics

biometric cards  |  biometrics  |  Egis Technology  |  Fingerprint Cards  |  fingerprint sensors  |  Goodix  |  Idex Biometrics  |  patents  |  Plurilock  |  secunet  |  smartphones  |  stocks