Biometric Smart Cards Month: A Timeline of Major Developments

Posted on November 19, 2019 by Alex Perala

Mobile ID World kicked off Biometric Smart Cards Month with an overview of how intertwining trends in the access control, payments, and mobile biometrics sectors helped to catalyze the emergence of biometric smart card technology. Our second feature went on to offer a primer on the key technological hurdles that were overcome to realize the biometric smart card concept, and particularly the biometric payment card.

Now, it’s time to get into the nitty gritty of the biometric smart cards industry, with a detailed timeline of some of the most important developments of the past several years. This timeline helps to illustrate just how far the biometric smart cards industry has come, as well as the growing momentum behind fingerprint scanning payment cards, with activity dramatically ramping up in recent years, as can be seen below:

2013

October: In partnership with Mereal Biometrics and UINT, Fingerprint Cards (FPC) announces world’s first biometric access control card featuring embedded fingerprint sensor

2014

January: Zwipe announces biometric access control card incorporating FPC tech
July: Card Tech orders IDEX fingerprint sensors for integration into access control cards
October: Mastercard, Zwipe announce launch of world’s first contactless payment card featuring an embedded fingerprint sensor
December: Mastercard concludes initial pilot of fingerprint-scanning credit card

2015

August: CardLogix adds support for biometrics to smart card development platform
September: Visa announces specification for biometric authentication on EMV chip cards

2016

February: Zwipe announces fingerprint-scanning access control card
April: NEXT Biometrics announces ISO/IEC 17839 compliance for its biometric smart card tech
June: Fingerprint Cards announces fingerprint sensor integration into Kona I smart cards aimed at the access control market; Suprema announces BioEntry W2 access control kiosk capable of reading both fingerprints and smart cards
November: NEXT Biometrics gets first orders for integration of flexible fingerprint sensors into bendable cards

2017

March: Oberthur Technologies showcases F-Code payment card prototype featuring embedded fingerprint sensor at Mobile World Congress
April: Mastercard announces completion of successful trials of biometric contactless payment cards in South Africa; IDEX reveals use of its fingerprint sensor tech in Mastercard trials, while Zwipe unveils biometric payment card tech at Seamless Asia payments expo
June: IDEX announces new, flexible, low-power fingerprint sensor designed specifically for NFC cards
August: Mastercard announces completion of European trial of biometric payment cards, which delivered “extremely positive customer feedback”; IDEX announces refined biometric matching algorithm tailored for smart cards
September: Corporate travel and expense cards supplier AirPlus launches dual interface payment card featuring embedded FPC fingerprint sensor with Precise Biometrics software; Denmark’s Cardlab announces plans to integrate FPC’s T-shape sensor into biometric card reference design

2018

January: Visa partners announce dual pilots of biometric payment card technologies – a US-based trial in collaboration with Mountain America Credit Union, Fingerprint Cards, Precise Biometrics, and Kona I; and a European trial in collaboration with the Bank of Cyprus, Gemalto, and Zwipe
April: Fingerprint Cards teams with manufacturing partner Smart Technology Services
May: IDEX fingerprint sensors featured in Middle Eastern trial of biometric payment cards
July: Smart card solutions provider JINCO Universal integrates IDEX tech
November: IDEX collaborates with CEC Huada Electronic Design Co. on reference design for biometric cards; Zwipe announces self-enrollment solution, Philippines card maker partnership, and manufacturing partnership with Smart Technology Services
December: IDEX partners with Excelsecu on biometric card solution for access control and employee authentication

2019

January: IDEX partners with major international card integrator Goldpac
February: Gemalto places volume order for card-focused biometric hardware and software from Fingerprint Cards; FPC announces demo at-home enrollment concept
May: IDEX partners with dual interface card maker Sian Intelligent Technology Co.; Zwipe partners with MEA-focused card maker Inkript
June: IDEX teams up with Secure Element specialist TMC; Zwipe partners with China-based Goldpac and XH Smart, and extends its partnership with Infineon
July: NXP’s Secure Processing Module, developed in collaboration with Fingerprint Cards, Precise Biometrics, and LINXENS, gets Mastercard CAST certification; FPC announces partnership with G+D to produce contactless biometric payment cards
September: Zwipe completes first delivery of second generation biometric inlay solution for smart cards
October: IDEMIA licenses IDEX enrollment tech for biometric payment cards; IDEX gets UK patent for remote enrollment solution

… As for what’s next, nobody has a crystal ball, but multiple industry leaders have suggested that the first major rollouts of biometric payment cards are likely to begin in 2020. And as consumers get more familiar with fingerprint scanning credit and debit cards, that in turn could help to further popularize the use of biometric smart cards in access control. At the very least, though, it’s clear from the above timeline that biometric smart card activity has been ramping up over the last few years, and there are no signs that it will be slowing down in the year ahead.