Zwipe unveils public biometric payment card demo video and reports Q1 results

Zwipe booked sales revenues of NOK 300,000 (roughly US$36,480) in the first quarter of 2021 as the company builds out its foundation for mass-volume rollouts of biometric payment cards.

As the first quarter of 2020 was marked by widespread market disruption in biometrics as in other industries, comparisons are of limited value, but Zwipe’s cash balance at the end of the quarter was NOK 108.9 million ($13.2 million). The loss from monthly operational cash flow for Zwipe was NOK 6.3 million ($0.77 million), wider than a year earlier, due to increased corporate activity.

For full-year 2020, Zwipe reported its revenues rose to NOK 1.8 million ($218,000) from NOK 1.5 million ($182,400) in 2019.

During the just-ended quarter, Zwipe finalized biometrics partnerships with four prominent card manufacturers in the Asia-Pacific region, which combine to ship 1 billion cards a year, 150 million of them payment cards. Zwipe also partnered with Vopy and Tag Systems.

Zwipe has continued to sign up partners and appoint regional leaders in the second quarter of its fiscal 2021.

“We continued to grow our ecosystem of smart card manufacturers and go-to-market partners, while cementing our collaboration with key technology partners in the payments value chain,” says Zwipe CEO André Løvestam. We have taken major steps towards technology readiness with our Zwipe Pay ONE platform, passing critical milestones and risk points and successfully performing fully functional internal test transactions with Zwipe Pay ONE demo cards. Consequently, we are on track to support our partners launch pilots after the summer. We have also onboarded key expert resources onto our team, strengthening the Zwipe organization even further.”

Løvestam notes the company’s many recent partnership announcements, and the momentum behind biometric payment cards, saying Zwipe has laid “a strong foundation for long-term value creation.”

Public demo video of biometric payment card unveiled

A video presenting the first ever public demonstration of Zwipe Pay ONE biometric payment card SoC has been unveiled along with the company’s first quarter update.

Løvestam delivers the case for contactless biometric payments, and their benefits for consumers, issuers and manufacturers, the latter of whom can use their existing production equipment to deliver a higher-value product.

A third-generation biometric payment card based on Zwipe Pay ONE is shown, and the integration of the various components for efficiency and support of existing manufacturing processes is explained. Løvestam then proceeds to perform a demo with test keys set up on the terminal and card, and a NOK 15,000 transaction simulated (30 times the transaction limit for a transaction without entering a PIN in Norway).

He holds the card next to the terminal for about two seconds with his thumb on the card’s built-in fingerprint sensor to complete the biometric authentication and the overall payment process.

Finally, several further transactions show the consistency of the process, up to payments of nearly a million Kroners.

Article Topics

biometric cards  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  financial results  |  fingerprint recognition  |  stocks  |  Zwipe  |  Zwipe Pay