IDEX Delivers Card Reference Design for MKSmart

IDEX Biometrics has raised its profile in Southeast Asia through a new partnership with MKSmart. MKSmart is one of the 10 largest card manufacturers in the world, and supplies organizations with access control cards and government IDs in addition to providing more conventional payment cards for financial institutions.

The partnership will allow MKSmart to start delivering biometric cards to card issuers before the end of the year. The company will initially focus on biometric payment cards, which will feature the turnkey card reference design that IDEX released with Infineon back in July. That reference design combines IDEX’s TrustedBio fingerprint sensor module with Infineon’s SLC38 security controller, and was built to help manufacturers bring new cards to market as quickly as possible.

VISA, Mastercard, China UnionPay, JCB, UPI, and the GSMA have all granted their approval to MKSmart’s smart card operations. IDEX’s components, meanwhile, have previously appeared in payment cards with Visa, Mastercard, and China UnionPay certification. The IDEX reference design also uses a proprietary integrated circuit to process the holder’s biometric data.

“The Southeast Asia region represents a very large opportunity for biometric payment cards,” said IDEX CEO Vince Graziani. “This adds to a growing list of customers and confirms that IDEX Biometrics is enabling the acceleration of global deployment for biometric smart cards. Our collaboration with MKSmart will deliver biometric smart card solutions that enable a secure and seamless user experience to millions of consumers in Southeast Asia and globally.”    

The scope of the new partnership will eventually expand to cover the development of IoT applications, and government and enterprise ID cards and access cards in addition to biometric payment cards. The technology could also be used to power cryptocurrency wallets. IDEX and Infineon previously shipped their reference design to another card manufacturer back in July, shortly after the reference design was first announced.

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January 28, 2022 – by Eric Weiss