IDEMIA Licences IDEX Enrollment Tech for Biometric Cards

IDEMIA has established a licensing agreement with IDEX concerning the latter’s biometric enrollment technology for payment cards and smart cards. The agreement grants IDEMIA the use of certain IDEX patents for the purpose of developing and selling on-card enrollment devices that function with IDEMIA’s own biometric card software.

IDEX first announced its enrollment system for biometric smart cards in 2017. Essentially, the system revolves around a lightweight receptacle into which a given card can be inserted; to enroll their biometric information, a user just need to scan their finger while the card is in the receptacle, with the process pairing that user’s fingerprint biometrics with the sensor on the card.

With the emergence of biometric debit and credit cards, the system allows banks to mail the cards together with the IDEX-designed enrollment solution to their customers, allowing the latter to set up their new cards without having to visit a physical bank branch.

This is the end to which IDEMIA appears to be aiming to use IDEX’s enrollment technology, with the company’s Financial Institutions Business Unit VP, Amanda Gourbault, commenting in a statement that her firm is looking to leverage its expertise and technology “to offer secure payment methods” to end customers. “Using biometrics to secure point of sale transactions reduces friction in the payment experience as well as providing the best security to carry out transactions with complete trust,” she added.

For IDEX’s part, Sales and Marketing VP Dave Orme framed IDEX’s enrollment solution as “a key enabler for biometric smart card adoption,” adding, “We’re delighted to be licensing this unique and innovative solution to IDEMIA as we continue to work closely together to enable mass adoption of biometric smart cards.”

The licensing agreement is just the latest development in a longstanding strategic partnership between IDEMIA and IDEX. In 2016, IDEX teamed up with Safran Identity & Security, which went on to merge with Oberthur Technologies to ultimately form IDEMIA; and in 2017, IDEX and IDEMIA announced an expansion of their biometric payment cards partnership.