Idex receives production order for biometric payment cards amid steps towards rollouts

Idex Biometrics has received a high volume order for the production of its TrustedBio fingerprint sensors, and Zwipe says the recent certification obtained from Visa and Mastercard for Idemia’s F.Code biometric payment card gives Zwipe’s platform a strong position. Also, Fingerprint Cards (FPC) and Fime recently participated in a webinar, discussing how to secure trust and performance for biometric payment card rollout.

Idex Biometrics receives new production order

The new order was placed with Idex by Idemia Group, which is behind the development of the F.Code payment card featuring Idex’s biometric authentication capabilities.

“We are proud to announce this significant additional booking from our partner Idemia,” commented the company’s CEO Vince Graziani.

Idex has not specified the exact value of the order, but the company confirmed it was the largest production order for TrustedBio received so far and that the move represented a material increase to the firm’s current backlog.

“Our joint development has resulted in a highly integrated, biometrically-enabled smart card with industry leading performance,” Graziani said.

Deliveries for the order are scheduled to begin shipping in early 2022, alongside Idex’s upcoming commercial launches and trials with banks.

“This order is representative of the rapid increase in demand we are seeing for smart cards secured by fingerprint authentication,” the CEO concluded.

Idex has also noted that the recent certification of Idemia cards by Visa and Mastercard, along with a letter of approval Idex received from China UnionPay in 2020, means its technology is now certified by the three largest global payment networks.

Zwipe says Idemia certifications validate platform

In an eventful week for Idemia, the company obtained full certification from both VISA and Mastercard for F.Code.

The new Letters of Approval validate the shared single silicon biometric secure element jointly developed by Idemia and Zwipe, as well as the IDX3405 fingerprint sensor from Idex Biometrics.

According to Zwipe, the certifications pave the way for subsequent successful certification of Zwipe Pay One-enabled biometric payment cards.

From a regulatory perspective, the timing for certification of Zwipe’s card manufacturing customers will remain subject to the planning and execution of the certification by each customer.

FPC and Fime discuss biometric payment card rollout issues

A recent episode of On the Pulse hosted by Fingerprint Cards (FPC) saw the discussion of the role of trust, certification, and testing of biometric cards.

Stéphanie El Rhomrat, VP of Services at Fime participated in the online discussion, together with Michel Roig, SVP of Business Line Payments and Access at FPC.

The participants discussed the recent partnership between Fime and FPC, with Roig highlighting the criteria the companies had to follow to fulfill the specifications for testing and certification from the payment schemes, particularly MasterCard and Visa.

El Rhomrat then explained how the whole ecosystem behind biometric cards benefits from the test and certification process, including vendors, stakeholders, consumers, and integrators.

She then added that testing and certification processes help biometric products evolve, through the balancing of user experience and the robustness of algorithms, the assessment of their demographic biases, and their performance in different environmental conditions, alongside the algorithms’ resilience against spoofing attempts.

“The process and test methodology are also evolving to help vendors speed up the product readiness without compromising on security,” El Rhomrat said.

Roig then took the floor and said that, according to FPC’s data, the adoption of biometric cards will continue to evolve in the next few years, but is not likely to replace smartphones or wearables, but instead work with them to create an increasingly secure payment ecosystem.

Article Topics

biometric cards  |  biometric testing  |  biometrics  |  certification  |  F.CODE  |  Fime  |  Fingerprint Cards  |  fingerprint sensors  |  IDEMIA  |  Idex Biometrics  |  payments  |  secure element  |  Zwipe  |  Zwipe Pay