FPC Provides Tech for IDEMIA’s Biometric Payment Card

“For FPC, the partnership represents the latest major step into the emerging biometric payment cards market after the company joined two major payments industry alliances and announced a new partnership with NXP Semiconductors last month.”

Fingerprint Cards has teamed up with IDEMIA to collaborate on biometric payment cards.

The companies have announced that IDEMIA’s F-Code solution, a payment card that scans the user’s fingerprint for authentication during transactions, will use FPC’s recently launched T-Shape fingerprint sensor module. F-Code is poised to be of the first biometric payment cards to see a commercial rollout thanks to a recently announced partnership between IDEMIA and Japanese credit card company JCB.

For FPC, the partnership represents the latest major step into the emerging biometric payment cards market after the company joined two major payments industry alliances and announced a new partnership with NXP Semiconductors last month. Commenting in a statement, FPC smart cards business SVP Thomas Rex explained, “Collaboration is key in the smartcard and card payments ecosystem,” adding, “IDEMIA is a leading provider in payment cards.”

The partnership could lead to further strategic opportunities, as well. Safran Identity & Security, which merged with Oberthur Technologies to form what is now IDEMIA, provided some of the technology used in Mastercard’s pioneering biometric payment card trials conducted this year. The trials also incorporated fingerprint sensor technology from IDEX, which has lately expounded on Mastercard’s leading role in championing biometric payment card technology in the mass market over the coming year.

What this all means for FPC isn’t yet clear, but the company has aligned itself with an important player in this emerging market, and its efforts to establish the right strategic and collaborative relationships suggests FPC is on track to be a key supplier of biometric technology in this sector as it expands.