“Visa’s payment card solution features an embedded fingerprint sensor as well as red and green lights to indicate when authentication has succeeded or failed.”

Visa is collaborating in the Bank of Cyprus’s biometric payment card trial, and will also initiate America’s first such pilot, with help from Fingerprint Cards and Precise Biometrics.

Announced earlier this month, the Bank of Cyprus project is being spearheaded by Gemalto, with Zwipe also providing technology for the biometric payment cards. The newly announced US pilot, meanwhile, is a collaboration with Mountain America Credit Union, and will revolve around biometric cards using fingerprint sensor technology from Fingerprint Cards in collaboration with its smart card partner Kona I. The payment card solution also uses biometric algorithm software from Precise Biometrics.

Visa’s payment card solution features an embedded fingerprint sensor as well as red and green lights to indicate when authentication has succeeded or failed. Biometric data is enrolled, stored, and matched entirely on the card, ensuring that user templates cannot be hacked from an external server. The cards support EMV chip and contactless payments, allowing for highly secure tap-based transactions.

News of Visa’s trials comes after Mastercard conducted successful pilots of its own biometric payment cards last year, with technology provided by partners including IDEMIA and IDEX. With both of the world’s biggest credit card companies now going forward with biometric payment card projects, it appears clear that a widely anticipated boom in the emerging biometric payment cards market will be realized.

In a statement announcing Visa’s pilot program, the company indicated that both the Bank of Cyprus and the Mountain America Credit Union trials will begin in “early 2018”, and will “assess the cardholder experience and the technology of the biometric cards in different retail environments.”

(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)