IDEX Highlights Payment Card Progress in Q3 Update

“Industry participants and analysts believe 2020 will [be] the year where the market moves from one defined by pilots, towards mass commercial deployments.” That’s one of the key takeaways from IDEX’s latest quarterly update, in which the company has reported significant progress in the journey toward commercialization of its fingerprint biometrics tech for the next generation of payment cards.

Such progress has taken various forms. IDEX’s update notes that an Asia-based customer has achieved a “cost-effective, mass production milestone for biometric smart cards”, while partnerships with Sian and Silone Cardtech have served to accelerate production. IDEX has also established its first licensing agreement for its remote enrollment solution through a deal with IDEMIA, and established another licensing agreement with Chutian Dragon. Its dual-interface technology has undergone testing at independent labs, and IDEX says it expects multiple card integrators to reach certification in the fourth quarter.

While these successes are all important as IDEX and the broader biometric payment cards industry move toward commercialization, they are setting the stage for future revenues. In terms of the third quarter of 2019, revenues came in at a little over NOK 1.3 million, a modest increase over IDEX’s revenues of about NOK 1.08 million in Q3 of 2018; while the company’s net result for the latest quarter was a loss of roughly NOK 66.67 million, compared to a net loss of about NOK 60.74 million a year ago.

Commenting on the quarter in a report summary, IDEX CEO Stan Swearingen kept his eye on the horizon, emphasizing IDEX’s “substantial progress” toward future market payoffs. “In the biometric payment card market, our largest potential revenue opportunity, we’re seeing positive developments in manufacturing and certification, whilst our remote enroll solution has the potential to become the industry-standard,” he said. “In the access control market, we’re seeing the beginning of shipments and design-in wins and it’s my strong belief that both these markets will fully materialize in 2020.”

IDEX’s update arrives on the heels of its news that it had made its debut on the OTCQB Venture Market exchange, which the company framed as an important gateway to US capital markets for the Norwegian company.

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November 13, 2019 – by Alex Perala