Fingerprint Cards Bets On ‘Cool’ Factor for Biometric Cards in China

Fingerprint Cards is betting on biometric payment cards becoming the next cool way to pay in China.

In a post on its website, the Swedish company notes that mobile payments have taken off in a big way in China, thanks in large part to the enormous popularity of smartphones in the culture. Not only Apple Pay, but also domestic platforms including AliPay and WeChatPay have many millions of users. As a result, traditional payment cards are less popular in China than they are in many other parts of the world.

But there is major potential in China for the emergence of biometric payment cards, Fingerprints argues. The popularity of mobile payments means that there is widespread support for contactless payment terminals, and so the market for contactless payment cards is “rapidly on the rise,” Fingerprints says. Enthusiasm for mobile payments platforms, and for smartphones in general, has helped to massively popularize biometric authentication among Chines consumers as well.

And then there’s just the fact that fingerprint-scanning cards are an eyebrow-raising technological innovation. “For Chinese consumers, possession of the latest technology is a status symbol,” Fingerprints says. “With biometric smartcards soon to be the latest ‘cool’ way to pay, it’s not surprising China is tipped to be early adopters of the technology.”

It’s an optimistic outlook, but given the huge amount of behind-the-scenes activity underway as the biometrics and financial services industries prepare for the next big evolution in payment cards, Fingerprint Cards is clearly paying close attention to the trends in play in one of the world’s biggest markets.

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November 30, 2018 – by Alex Perala