Idemia’s next-generation biometric payment card receives full Mastercard, Visa certification

Idemia’s second-generation biometric card platform F.CODE is now fully certified by both Mastercard and Visa, setting up high-volume market deployments to meet growing demand for biometric payment cards.

Mastercard issued a Letter of Approval (LOA) to Idemia, providing assurance that the biometric technology will work throughout its payment ecosystem. The payments giant has approximately 2.5 billion cards in circulation, which could rise by 29 percent over the next five years, according to Nilson research.

Cards built on the F.CODE platform comply with the most demanding criteria for performance and security, Idemia says, by integrating previously-discrete components into the single-chip Bio-Secure Element, and optimizing the biometric algorithms.

Mastercard has been piloting biometric payment cards with Idemia’s technology for some time already. Idemia cites a Dentsu Data Lab survey of people from 14 countries which found that 81 percent are ready to authenticate for payments with fingerprint biometrics instead of a PIN.

The F.CODE biometric card platform utilizes the TrustedBio fingerprint authentication solution from Idex Biometrics.

“Completion of the Mastercard certification process by our partner Idemia, is another significant achievement for Idex Biometrics,” comments Idex Biometrics CEO Vince Graziani. “We now have certified biometric solutions with the top three global payment networks, allowing for deployment of biometric cards, together with our integration and issuer partners, at a rapid pace to over 15 billion consumers. We are happy that our TrustedBio solution is contributing to the ground-breaking performance and cost profile of our partner’s biometric payment card platform.”

Article Topics

biometric cards  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  certification  |  F.CODE  |  fingerprint sensors  |  IDEMIA  |  Idex Biometrics  |  Mastercard  |  secure element