Fingerprint Cards expands Feitian biometric payment card partnership

Biometric sensor maker Fingerprint Cards has announced an expansion of its collaboration with cyber security products provider Feitian. The companies plan to jointly develop an advanced biometric card solution for the global payment and access markets.

The cards will run on Fingerprint Cards’ software and a Feitian operating system. Biometric authentication is enabled via Infineon’s newly approved secure element (SLC38) and Fingerprint Cards’ T-Shape (T2) sensor module.

The companies confirmed the new biometric cards will be offered as a pre-laminated solution to card manufacturers, who will reportedly be able to integrate them in payment and access cards using standard automated manufacturing processes.

“The volume ramp of Fingerprints’ and Feitian’s advanced biometric card solution is an important milestone for biometric payment cards and is an early fruit of a far-reaching collaboration with our strategic partner Fingerprints,” says Head of Payment Solutions at Infineon Tolgahan Yildiz.

“Our dedicated collaboration has resulted in a Biometric System-on-Card (BSoC) platform without the need of an additional microcontroller, which is a major contribution to the whole payment ecosystem.”

A graphic accompanying the announcement depicts a Mastercard. The payments network approved the T2 module as meeting its updated security standards earlier this year.

Fingerprint Cards and Freevolt discuss biometric card partnership

Fingerprint Cards recently participated in IFSEC 2022 in May, jointly presenting its solutions with biometric smart cards manufacturer Freevolt.

Last week, the company wrote a blog post about its participation in the event. The article is an interview between Fingerprint Cards Marketing Director, Maria Pihlström, and Freevolt’s Head of Product and Business Development, Gonzalo de Gisbert, and explores the collaboration between the firms further.

For context, Freevolt’s main product is S-Key, a batteryless biometric smart card that runs on Fingerprint Cards software.

“Having built a smart card from the ground up, using our Freevolt energy harvesting technology, our company now has the opportunity to build on this platform for other use cases such as cryptocurrency, healthcare, payments etc,” de Gisbert told Fingerprint Cards.

The interview also explores the key issues facing the access control industry today, among which the Freevolt executive mentioned lower footfall in offices and hygiene worries around shared surfaces.

Additionally, de Gisbert outlined the reasons behind Freevolt’s partnership with Fingerprint Cards.

“Traditionally, biometric solutions present a challenge with data protection, especially for regulations such as the UK and European GDPR,” the executive said.

“Yet with the S-Key, this is not an issue as we use the on-device approach championed by Fingerprints, where the biometric data is enrolled, securely stored, matched and authenticated on the card itself. That means no databases of data in the cloud.”

Looking to the future, the Freevolt executive said the company intends to keep developing products for the access control industry, as well as for healthcare and cryptocurrency spaces.

Article Topics

access control  |  biometric cards  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  Feitian Technologies  |  Fingerprint Cards  |  fingerprint sensors  |  Freevolt  |  research and development