Advancing contactless payments drive mass deployment of biometric cards

Biometric payment cards with combined fingerprint sensor make contactless payments more accessible, more secure and hygienic. The contactless card stays in the hands of the cardholder during the complete payment transaction, while removing the requirement for PIN entries or signatures to authorise even high-value payments. Infineon Technologies and Fingerprint Cards AB have joined forces to facilitate mass deployment of this emerging solution.

“Authorizing payments without handing over the card is a huge step forward in terms of user experience, data security and hygiene. We selected Fingerprints as they are the leading biometric silicon and technology provider with market-proven performance. Jointly, we want to drive the industrialisation of biometric payment cards from a niche into mass-market rollout,” said Bjoern Scharfen, head of the Payment and Transport Ticketing product line at Infineon. “Combining Fingerprints’ leading biometric technology with our expertise in chip security, energy efficiency and contactless performance, we will develop a system solution that is easy to integrate and gives our customers a head start in an emerging growth market.”

“Collaboration is key in the payment ecosystem, in which Infineon is a leading player. Together we will produce an optimised solution that will make it easier for card manufacturers to integrate biometrics into future generations of contactless payment cards, ultimately putting these cards into the hands of consumers around the world to enable a worry-free payment experience,” says Michel Roig, SVP Business Line Payments and Access at Fingerprints.

Fingerprints’ sensor modules, coupled with Infineon’s 40nm high-performance and energy-efficient security controllers based on the 32-bit ARM SecurCore SC300, fully support the demands of biometric payment cards.