SECORA Pay Bio to bring biometric payment cards to a new level

2 mins read

Infineon Technologies and Fingerprint Cards have announced the signing of a joint development and commercialisation agreement of a plug-and-play turnkey solution for biometric payment smart cards.

The goal of the cooperation is to simplify biometric smart card production.

The SECORA Pay Bio turnkey solution will include both Fingerprints’ FPC1323 sensor with its biometric software algorithm and Infineon's upcoming SLC39B Secure Element. This off-the-shelf solution will come with a pre-certified Java Card operating system including Mastercard and Visa bio-applets.

With the development of the Infineon Biometric Coil on Module (BCoM) package based on inductive coupling technology, the overall biometric smart card manufacturing process will be significantly simplified, and the bill of material reduced. This will allow card manufacturers to use already existing card manufacturing equipment to produce biometric payment cards and enable scalable and efficient volume production.

“Our collaboration with Infineon will further push the boundaries of producing biometric payment cards with new, innovative product designs for the mass market,” said Michel Roig, President of Payment & Access at Fingerprints. “By combining and integrating the leading components, Fingerprints’ FPC1323 and Infineon’s SLC39B security system-on-chip, into one system package, we will offer proven biometric performance executed in a single chip. This innovative and fully integrated solution will simplify, scale production, and enable worriless payments for consumers.”

“The cooperation agreement with our strategic partner Fingerprints is an important milestone in enabling easy-to-manufacture, cost-effective, and highly scalable biometric card production simply with existing tools at no additional CAPEX for our customers,” explained Tolgahan Yildiz, Head of Payment Solutions at Infineon’s Connected Secure Systems Division.

According to ABI Research up to 140 million biometric payment sensor cards could be issued in 2025 fulfilling consumer demand for more convenient and secured biometric authentication in personal payment transactions.

In daily life, biometric card holders verify their identity simply by placing a finger on the card's sensor and tapping the card at the terminal. It has the clear advantage of not requiring a PIN code during payment at a point of sale (POS) terminal. For this reason, biometric payment cards can offer more convenient, and hygienic payment experiences without the need for low transaction limits. Each transaction, starting with the first Euro, will be authorized by a second-factor authentication, dramatically reducing misuse in the case of lost or stolen cards.

The SLC39B is Infineon’s advanced system-on-chip (SoC) crypto-processor with an integrated power source, large memory size and diverse peripherals, as well as best-in-class contactless performance. The company’s BCoM is a tailored, innovative, dual-interface Coil on Module (CoM) for SECORA Pay Bio, which integrates Fingerprints’ advanced sensor and Infineon's upcoming Secure Element into a single package. With the inductive coupling technology, no wire connection between the card antenna and the module is needed. This significantly improves the robustness and long-term reliability of biometric payment cards.