ABI Research is charting a strong ascent for EMV payment card issuance, with emerging biometric card technology playing an important role.

The market research firm says it expects EMV payment card issuance to rise from 3.18 billion this year to over 3.75 billion by 2023, with several factors propelling that growth. These include contactless migration, growing wealth in developing areas, and the emergence of new form factors including metal cards and biometric payment cards.

“Metal cards and biometric payment cards continue to gain momentum,” ABI Research said in its forecast, adding later, “The announcement by Fingerprint Cards’ in March 2019 for its first large-scale order of a few hundred thousand flexible sensors is another sign supporting continued biometric card growth.”

Elsewhere, in noting the rise of contactless payment cards, ABI Research highlights numerous ‘leading ecosystem players’ including biometrics specialists such as Precise Biometrics, IDEX, IDEMIA, and Gemalto, in addition to Fingerprint Cards. As an example of the growth trend, ABI Research says it expects contactless card issuance in the US to rise from 200 million this year to 609 million in 2023.

It’s an encouraging forecast for the firms mentioned, as well as the other players angling for position in the biometric payment cards market, which is increasingly looking like the next big wave in payments, and a potential salve for fingerprint biometrics specialists that have been burned by plummeting ASPs in the mobile biometrics market over the last year or two.