Mastercard launches biometric credit card in Jordan with Thales, FPC technology

Mastercard has partnered with Jordan Kuwait Bank to launch Jordan’s first biometric payment card and the first World Elite brand card in the MEA region with biometric features to reach commercial availability.

The Jordan Kuwait Bank Biometric World Elite Mastercard has an onboard, match-on-card fingerprint reader for PIN-free payments. The cards feature technology from Thales and Fingerprint Cards, under a deal for World Elite issuance announced in September.

“Jordanian consumers have demonstrated their enthusiasm towards emerging payment technologies in general, and we are delighted to partner with Jordan Kuwait Bank to bring its most affluent customers state of the art advancements in fingerprint and biometric authentication technology,” says J.K. Khalil, country manager, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the Levant at Mastercard.

No release date is provided, but affluent Jordanians can expect to be part of biometric payment cards going mainstream from 2022.

The race is on to issue biometric payment cards around the world. Zwipe is partnering with local card producers and banks in the region and beyond. Its Zwipe Pay ONE biometric card is coming to Morocco and North Africa,  Lebanon and Iraq as well as Chile and Latin America.

Mastercard previously announced an intention to bring biometric payment cards from Idemia to trials in the fourth quarter of this year, and Idemia’s platform includes technologies from Idex Biometrics and Zwipe.

Article Topics

authentication  |  biometric cards  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  Fingerprint Cards  |  fingerprint sensors  |  Jordan  |  Mastercard  |  secure transactions  |  Thales Digital Identity and Security