COURBEVOIE, FRANCE and OSLO, NORWAY– 08 April 2020 – 

• IDEMIA, the global leader in Augmented Identity, and ZWIPE, a leading biometric fin-tech company, announce today, as per plan¹, the arrival of the first engineering samples of the next generation of the biometric secure element
• This device will be the heart of the F.CODE next generation biometric card that IDEMIA will sell to Financial Institutions
• ZWIPE, the holder of worldwide and exclusive rights to distribute this technology, will benefit from early availability of this new platform for their customers²
• IDEMIA has selected IDEX Biometrics, a leading provider of advanced fingerprint identification and authentication solutions, as supplier of the biometric sensor for the new platform.
• The three companies will be piloting in the second half of 2020, with commercial rollout planned from 2021 and onwards.

Following the exclusive partnership and distribution agreement signed between IDEMIA and ZWIPE, the two companies announce that first samples of the new chip have now arrived for further verification and qualification with the first power-on successfully executed. Therefore, the new platform will now progress to the next stages of developments and will be able to meet expected demand from card issuers with a first launch on the market as from second half 2020 followed by a mass production of biometric cards during 2021. IDEMIA and IDEX have signed an agreement by which IDEX will supply the card’s sensors for this next generation of biometric payment cards. This agreement deepens a long-standing collaboration between IDEMIA and IDEX to develop biometric payment cards including an IP licensing agreement signed in Oct 2019³. By teaming up with ZWIPE and IDEX to offer a disruptive biometric payment card platform that will radically reduce biometric payment card costs, IDEMIA is driving the growth of the biometric cards market and enables an accelerated path to mass volumes, which will ultimately benefit the issuers and users of cards.

Amanda Gourbault, IDEMIA Executive Vice President Financial Institutions says: “This achievement of this key milestone demonstrates that our next F.CODE generation biometric card development is being executed according to plan allowing a pilot launch second half 2020. Together with our business partners we are showcasing our best-in-class expertise in designing and manufacturing biometric-based payment cards”.

André Løvestam, CEO of ZWIPE  says: ”We are pleased to see this progress and we strongly believe that bringing forward the new platform together with IDEMIA will be a major catalyst in creating long term shareholder value and provide the technological leap needed to shape the future of the biometric payment card market and to drive commercial success for ZWIPE. The progress up until now has further strengthened our conviction that this project will meet not only the time schedule, but also the targeted unit cost reductions on biometric payment cards.”

Vince Graziani, CEO of IDEX commented: “We are proud to have been selected by IDEMIA and look forward to continue collaboration with this leader in authentication solutions, and to initiate collaboration with ZWIPE to bring biometric payment cards to the mass market. This award by one of the world’s largest card manufacturers is a validation of our off-chip product design that enables high performance at a disruptive cost point.”

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1: see PR - https://www.idemia.com/press-release/idemia-and-zwipe-partner-offer-disruptive-biometric-payments-card-platform-2019-09-19

2: manufacturers of payment cards, wearables and other payment solutions, and their suppliers.

3: see PR https://www.idemia.com/press-release/idemia-enters-patent-license-agreement-card-enrollment-solutions-idex-order-expand-its-leadership-field-biometric-cards-2019-10-03