Middle East Bank Announces Biometric Card Pilot With Zwipe and areeba

Zwipe’s Pay ONE technology will soon be featured in a biometric payment card pilot in the Middle East. The company’s latest customer is a medium-sized bank that provides wealth management services for high net worth individuals in the Levant region.

The pilot is scheduled to begin sometime in the first six months of 2022, with additional support from areeba. Areeba is a payment services provider that entered into a strategic partnership with Zwipe in 2020 to market biometric payment cards to clients in the Middle East. However, the two companies first started working together in 2018 when areeba outfitted area banks with a Gemalto card that featured Zwipe’s biometric technology. In that regard, areeba has been one of the region’s earliest proponents of digital transformation in the financial industry.

“We are  always seeking to make use of the latest technologies available to make life more convenient and safer for our clients,” said areeba CEO Maher Mikati. “With biometric payments we will significantly enhance user experience and security of our card payment products.”

 “We are confident that the pilot will show how biometric payment cards can help the bank to attract new customers, uplift customer loyalty and ensure excellent returns from their payment portfolio,” added Zwipe MENA Region General Manager Ramzi Saboury. “Zwipe will be supporting the bank through all stages of the pilot journey, ensuring smooth pilots with strong end user focus.” 

Areeba has already agreed to distribute biometric payment cards to clients in Iraq and Lebanon, while Zwipe has enjoyed a flurry of business activity in the Middle East in the past few months. The company announced a pilot with an Egyptian bank in December. Before that, Zwipe signed deals with Que Processing Services, Middle East Payment Services, and with the Saudi Arabian card manufacturer GEPCOM. Zwipe CEO André Løvestam has predicted that 2022 will be a breakthrough year for the company as more financial institutions move forward with commercial launches of biometric payment products.