As it works toward commercially launching biometric payment cards, Gemalto has ordered fingerprint scanning technology from Fingerprint Cards. More specifically, Gemalto is leveraging Fingerprints’ T-Shape fingerprint sensor module and its recently announced Biometric Software Platform in the continuing development of payment cards that can scan a user’s fingerprint for authentication during transactions.
Announcing the order in a statement, Fingerprints’ indicated that it “comprises a few hundred thousand sensors” that will be delivered this year and into 2020. The company noted that the order “is not, in itself, financial significant” with respect to its overall revenues, but emphasized that “this is the first volume order in the biometric smartcard industry, which strengthens Fingerprints’ view that the global market for biometric payment cards is about to materialize.”
That further suggests Fingerprints’ leadership in this emerging market, with CEO Christian Fredrikson having asserted in the company’s recent Q4/2018 fiscal report that Fingerprint Cards’ fingerprint sensors have been used “in all seventeen tests of contactless payment cards that have been published to date”. That would include an Italian trial launched in partnership with Gemalto and also Mastercard last November.
It all points to the ongoing emergence of the broader biometric payment cards market, an area in which not only Fingerprints but various other fingerprint biometrics specialists have been highly active developing the relevant technologies in collaboration with partners in the financial services sector.
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