Zwipe partners up to bring biometric payment cards to MENA banks

Biometric payment cards are becoming available to banks in the Middle East and North Africa through a partnership that will see Zwipe supply its Zwipe Pay ONE biometric payment solutions to Middle East financial technology provider areeba, according to a company announcement.

Zwipe Pay ONE’s combination of the secure element and next-generation sensor with a mobile app for biometric fingerprint enrollment will be a leading market solution, the company says.

The two companies have a long-standing relationship, including a pilot that launched in late in-2018 at 10 banks in the Middle East, with support from Unilux Cards. The project won a Seamless Award for Best Technological Innovation in Payments from the payments event.

Zwipe is pursuing the same general strategy in other regions as well, forming a partnership with Nordic banking services company TietoEVRY announced earlier this month.

“We are happy to take this next big step with Zwipe, a well-known brand in biometric payments,” says Maher Mikati, CEO at areeba. “Their disruptive Zwipe Pay ONE platform and 100 percent focus on biometric payment solutions complements our strong relations and end-to-end payments offering to banks and merchants across the region. We pride ourselves on being innovators and, together with Zwipe, we will give banks a new perspective on how to drive deeper customer engagement and acquisition by offering safer and more secure payments.”

Under the terms of the agreement, areeba will work exclusively with Zwipe to deliver biometric payment solutions, including Zwipe Experience, the company’s service for implementing and scaling biometric payment cards from early trial stage to mass market rollout. Zwipe Experience consists of technical manufacturing support, issuer integration services and piloting services.

“We are proud that areeba has now decided to roll-out biometric payments and selected Zwipe Pay ONE as its platform for doing so,” says André Løvestam, CEO of Zwipe. “We have worked closely together to introduce and strengthen the business case of biometric payments in the region and we are happy to see the market moving towards larger scale adoption.”

The companies say that they have engaged multiple smart card manufacturing partners as they plan for volume deployment of the technology, beginning in 2021.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometric cards  |  biometrics  |  Middle East  |  payments  |  stocks  |  Zwipe  |  Zwipe Pay ONE