“The biometric payment cards are a long-sought technological innovation, adding further security to payment cards by requiring that a user scan her thumb when holding the payment card over a POS terminal.”

IDEX technology is powering the biometric functionality of Mastercard’s new payment card, the company has revealed.

Mastercard announced yesterday that it had completed successful trials of the biometric EMV payment card in South Africa, and is planning further pilot programs in Europe and the APAC region.

READ: FindBiometrics Interviews IDEX CEO Hemant Mardia about biometric smart cards technology at MWC 2017

The biometric payment cards are a long-sought technological innovation, adding further security to payment cards by requiring that a user scan her thumb when holding the payment card over a POS terminal. In a statement, IDEX CEO Hemant Mardia said the Mastercard integration is the result of “multiple years of technology development and focus on this market,” and suggested that commercial deployment of the cards is anticipated for later this year.

The Mastercard biometric payment card is one of two high profile smart card announcements just this week. Zwipe recently held its first public demonstration of its own biometric payment card technology, indicating that this new market is going to heat up quickly.

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(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)