Zwipe Finds Validation in IDEMIA’s Visa and Mastercard Certifications

Another important IDEMIA partner is celebrating the recent Visa and Mastercard certifications for the company’s F.CODE payment card solution. Zwipe has issued a statement asserting that the certifications “fully validate the core components” of its Zwipe Pay ONE solution.

The companies first revealed their collaboration in the latter half of 2019, announcing a partnership that would focus on developing a streamlined biometric payment card solution that would minimize the number of components needed for it to function, thereby reducing cost and production time. A key aim of theirs was to integrate components like the microcontroller and Secure Element into a single chip.

The fruits of their labor emerged the following spring, with IDEMIA and Zwipe announcing that they had produced the first samples of a new chip for biometric payment cards that would serve as the secure biometric element. They also revealed the involvement of IDEX Biometrics in their efforts, with the latter brought in to provide the fingerprint sensors to be used in the payment cards.

Ultimately, these technologies would produce IDEMIA’s F.CODE biometric payment card solution, which received important certifications this week on its path to mass commercialization. Mastercard and Visa each issued a Letter of Approval affirming that the F.CODE could function within their EMV payment ecosystems. As a result, IDEMIA went ahead and placed a major production order for IDEX’s TrustedBio sensor.

Zwipe is happy, too. In a statement, the company said that the certification validate its platform’s key components, “notably the shared single silicon biometric secure element”.

“This paves the way for subsequent successful certification of Zwipe Pay ONE enabled biometric payment cards for Zwipe’s customers, as Zwipe is working towards completion of its Zwipe Pay ONE platform,” the company stated.

The development also signals the building momentum behind the biometric payment card concept more broadly, with this year having seen multiple pilots and even commercial launches of such technology.

(Originally posted on Mobile ID World)