OSLO, Norway—Norwegian biometric firm Zwipe has announced that it has made the first shipment of its biometric tech for use in commercial contactless biometric payment card pilots by card manufacturers and banks.
The move comes at a time when Washington is strongly considering the need for greater regulation around the protection of sensitive consumer information—including new means to secure cardholder data—following the massive Equifax data breach.
Zwipe says its card manufacturing partners represent over 40% of the global smartcard market, per volume shipped. Zwipe has entered into seven new agreements with both card manufacturers and payments ecosystem partners with a focus on meeting escalating commercial demand for biometric smartcard solutions, Planet Biometrics reported.
Zwipe's biometric contactless payment card is the only smartcard solution commercially available, and the only solution capable of operating without the need for a battery or fixed power supply, Planet Biometrics said.
“We now have extensive agreements in place with some of the world’s leading card manufacturers, paving the way for commercial deployment with banks over the course of 2018,” Kim Humborstad, founder and CEO of Zwipe, told Planet Biometrics.
Zwipe received their first commercial orders for their contactless biometric payment card inlay in June of this year.
“We have received additional orders based on progress made this summer for our solution which is fully market ready. Upon successful completion of pilots, commencing in the fourth quarter this year, our partners have communicated expected volume rollouts numbering in the several hundred thousand range in 2018,” Pascal Dufour, SVP of payment at Zwipe, told Planet Biometrics.