Areeba, a Middle East-based payment services provider, will be offering Zwipe‘s biometric payment solutions to its banking partners, thanks to a new agreement.
The companies have a longstanding relationship. In 2018, when Gemalto was embarking on early trials of biometric payment cards, its solution featured technology from Zwipe; Areeba, in turn, started offering Gemalto’s biometric Visa card to its Middle Eastern clients.
Now, Areeba has agreed to “work exclusively with Zwipe in delivering biometric payment solutions”, the companies have announced. And while their agreement appears to cover “biometric payment solutions” broadly, they say that they have already engaged multiple smart card manufacturers to prepare for volume deployments of biometric payment cards specifically, starting in 2021.
Commenting on the collaboration, Areeba CEO Maher Mikati praised Zwipe for its “disruptive Zwipe Pay ONE platform and 100% focus on biometric payment solutions”, adding, “We pride ourselves on being innovators and, together with Zwipe, we will give banks a new perspective on how to drive deeper customer engagement and acquisition by offering safer and more secure payments.”
For Zwipe’s part, CEO André Løvestam gestured toward the anticipated large-scale commercialization of biometric payment cards, and highlighted the efforts in concert with Areeba to make that a reality. “We have worked closely together to introduce and strengthen the business case of biometric payments in the region and we are happy to see the market moving towards larger scale adoption,” he said.
The exclusive agreement’s announcement arrives after last week’s news that Zwipe’s biometric technology would be used to develop new payment devices from TietoEVRY.
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