IDEX Biometrics has partnered up with CEC Huada Electronic Design Co., or HED, a China-based Secure Element specialist. The two companies will work together on a reference design for biometric smart cards.

The partnership was announced on the closing day of this year’s Trustech event in France, where IDEX representatives are on hand alongside other smart card partners including Feitian and Chutian Dragon. The lead-up to Trustech has seen a flurry of announcements from biometrics specialists angling for position in the emerging biometric payment cards market, with NEXT Biometrics having announced a reference design partnership with Munich’s Infineon Technologies just a few weeks ago.

In a statement announcing the HED partnership, IDEX CEO Stan Swearingen emphasized the size and reach of his firm’s new partner. “HED is the largest Chinese SE company, with a dominant position across several verticals, including national ID, social security, banking cards, and ships more than 1.5 billion pieces annually,” he said, adding that HED is a “strong proponent for biometric smart cards, and we are confident the collaboration will be beneficial for both parties as well as the end user.”

For HED’s part, the firm’s General Manager, Chang Feng, attested that “[t]here is significant demand for the next generation of biometric smart cards,” and emphasized the importance of Secure Element technology in protecting the data of end users. The Secure Element will be the core focus of HED and IDEX’s reference design collaboration, and Chang asserted that the companies expect it “to be in very high demand across multiple verticals, including banking, identification, and social security.”

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November 29, 2018 – by Alex Perala