IDEMIA and BBVA are hoping to make bank cards a little more sustainable. The two companies have announced that IDEMIA will be providing BBVA with a PVC card made from recycled plastics, which will help advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The first run of recycled cards will be sent to customers with a BBVA Youth Account in Spain. BBVA expects to issue more than 500,000 in that initial wave, with the first batch of cards expected to reach customers in June of 2020. The program will then expand over the course of the next two years, with production ramping up to deliver cards to BBVA customers around the world before the end of 2021.
“This first card is a big leap forward for the adoption of cards made from recycled plastics,” said IDEMIA Financial Institutions Executive VP Amanda Gourbault. “We are thrilled to be making history in this market by bringing our expertise to contribute to the good of society as a whole.”
“Young people in particular are aware of the importance of protecting the environment and their demand for sustainable solutions is growing,” added Ana Pitarch, BBVA’s Head of Individual Customers in Spain. “We have chosen IDEMIA’s trusted solutions in order to accompany our customers in the environmental transition journey.”
The cards themselves are made with old industrial waste materials, and will have a symbol on the back to let owners know that they are made with recycled plastic. The supplier of those materials has also given IDEMIA an “Environmental Claim Validation Summary.”
The new cards will reduce the amount of first-use PVC plastic in card manufacturing, and should help keep IDEMIA at the forefront of that particular industry. The company has been working towards biometric payment cards for the past few years, and recently embarked on a biometric card pilot with Zwipe after licensing smart card enrollment technology from IDEX Biometrics.
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