Fingerprint Cards AB ships billionth biometric sensor, aided by Gemalto deal

Fingerprint Cards AB delivered its billionth fingerprint sensor to the market, aided by a recent deal with Gemalto to provide sensors for its biometrics credit and debit cards.

Gothenburg, Sweden-based Fingerprints Cards AB was founded in 1997 and has been producing fingerprint sensors for a variety of products over the last 22 years including smartphones, tablets, automotive and internet-of-things devices. Its recent deal with Gemalto added a few hundred thousand sensors for payments cards over the next two years. Fingerprint Cards claims that the Gemalto deal is the first volume order in the biometric smart card industry.

“A host of new payment-enabled devices like credit cards, wearables and IoT devices are set to integrate touch biometrics, triggering the second wave of biometric adoption. Trials of contactless biometric payment cards are already in progress around the world,” said Thomas Rex, senior vice president of business line for smartcards, embedded and automotive at Fingerprint Cards, in an emailed statement.

Fingerprint Cards has also teamed with Gemalto for a contactless biometric card trial in Italy with Italian-bank Intesa Sanpaolo. The trial is slated to last 16 weeks and will encompass users in Turin, Milan, and Rome. The Italian payment card trial is just one of many that Fingerprint Cards has been conducting over the last two years.

Last year Fingerprint Cards teamed with Visa to launch a limited biometric card trial with Utah-based Mountain America Credit Union.