Zwipe and Idex each strike biometric payment cards deals in Asia

Zwipe Pay ONE technology will be built into biometric payment cards from Bangladeshi payment cards company Silkways Cards and Printing Ltd (Silkcard) for issuance by financial institutions in the country under a new partnership.

In addition to supplying its Pay ONE platform, Zwipe will assist Silkcard in the production and personalization of biometric payment cards for clients in Bangladesh and abroad.

Silkcard delivers well over 12 million payment cards annually to banking and retail, the announcement indicates.

“We see Zwipe Pay ONE as the state-of-the-art technology on biometric payment cards and look forward to a close collaboration with Zwipe,” said Sk Farid Ahmed, managing director of Silkways Card & Printing Ltd.

André Løvestam, CEO of Zwipe called Silkcard “one of the strongest providers in Bangladesh. With a population of over 166 million and an economy growing over 7 percent per year, this market represents significant growth potential for our innovation from security, financial inclusion and innovation perspectives. Together with Silkcard, we will bring next-generation contactless payment cards in this fast growing market,” he said.

In April, French payment cards provider be ys Pays signed a deal for Zwipe to power its fingerprint-enabled cards with its Pay ONE biometrics solution, destined for the French and Belgian markets, among others.

China Construction Bank selects Idex Biometrics

China Construction Bank (CCB) has expanded trials for infrastructure to support its ‘digital renminbi’ offerings to include smart cards featuring fingerprint sensors and software from Idex Biometrics.

The biometric smart cards will be issued as hardware wallets for the digital currency under China’s Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) initiative. The wallet smart cards resemble a conventional dual-interface card, according to the announcement, with secure processing, encrypted memory, and near-field communication (NFC) capabilities within the secure element.

“As the DCEP initiative continues to evolve, there is a significant market opportunity for offline hardware wallets protected by fingerprint biometrics,” says Idex Chief Executive Officer, Vince Graziani. “Low cost and easy to use hardware wallets are the perfect solution for enabling the DCEP initiative to reach those who do not have access to a smartphone or a bank, who would be otherwise left behind in a digital currency world. The emerging hardware wallet application is an incremental market opportunity beyond the already large market for biometric payment cards.”

Article Topics

Asia  |  biometric cards  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  fingerprint sensors  |  Idex Biometrics  |  smart card  |  smartcards  |  Zwipe  |  Zwipe Pay