Idex sees the near future consolidated on a biometric smart card | Biometric Update

Digital wallet technology is arriving, but physical cards are durable things. According to Catharina Eklof, CEO of Idex Biometrics, the card market continues to grow year-on-year at a global scale, with the number of payment cards in circulation rising by nearly one billion worldwide between 2022 and 2023.

Furthermore, in terms of biometric modalities, faces may be having their time in the sun – but you can never count out the classics, which have lasted for good reason.

“While contactless payments prioritize speed and convenience, this often involves a trade-off with security,” says Eklof in an interview with Biometric Update. “When you think about it, using your fingerprint to authenticate is a voluntary act – you press your fingerprint on the reader – whereas your face can be captured without your consent via surveillance cameras, for instance.”

“Also, while your fingerprint is not available on the internet, your face can in many cases be easily found on social media and other digital platforms. This increases the risk surrounding face ID when it comes to deepfakes and synthetic ID fraud.”

That said, to keep up in a rapidly changing market, physical payment cards have had to adapt in balancing security with a growing demand for convenience and consistency. “Biometric smart cards represent a shift in data ownership – one that empowers users to store their private information with total control, and in a way that minimizes the risk of data being retrieved illegally,” Eklof says.

The Norwegian company’s unique architecture, “with a decoupled silicon chip from the actual sensing part of the device,” enables it to “embed advanced computation capability directly within the sensor to perform hardware acceleration for biometric computation, AI-driven spoof detection and end-to-end encryption.”

Which means in Idex’s off-cloud system, biometric information is stored directly on the card and the data never leaves it, reducing the risk of data breaches: fingerprint biometric authentication is performed directly on-card, meaning there is “no change to existing payment terminals and infrastructure.” The cards also let holders authenticate without limits on transaction value.

Another marquee innovation is the on-card enrollment system, a remote registration option which Eklof says has been designed to optimize user experience during “one of the most critical moments in the biometric card customer journey.”

“Fingerprint registration via mobile phones or special devices allows enrollment to take place entirely inside the biometric smart card using its standard secure chip, without the need to connect to a computer, smartphone, or any other connected device,” she says. “This removes any possibility of potential tampering or external interference during the fingerprint registration process.”

“Our smooth six-touch fingerprint registration allows customers to start activating their card quickly, and to further strengthen the performance, the fingerprint template is improved during the subsequent six payments.”

For biometric smart cards, testing is a particularly important part of the security equation, given the amount of wear and tear to which they are typically subjected. Eklof notes that “payment cards are expected to have a working life of several years, and during this time they are exposed to a range of ambient temperatures, are handled by wet hands, or hands contaminated with chemicals such as sun cream or gels. They sit in our wallets and handbags and are bent, twisted, and flexed.”

“The environment in which our fingerprint sensors must operate under is extreme and we need to mimic this environment in the lab to ensure they keep working flawlessly over time.”

Idex has certification from Mastercard and Visa and also does extensive testing through third-parties and on its own. It uses computer simulations to boost performance, reliability and time to market, validates the performance of its fingerprint sensors against customer specifications and carries out direct consumer testing.

“Biometric performance is a key part of our testing strategy,” Eklof says. “We use smart cards based on our reference design to collect and build a diverse database of thousands of fingerprint images which can then be used to calculate the False Accept Rate (FAR) and False Reject Rate (FRR) of our biometric algorithm. Each database run requires millions of ‘match’ and ‘cross-match’ attempts to measure performance.”

The aforementioned Visa and Mastercard certifications have given Idex significant reach in enabling access to a network comprising over 28,000 banks. It continues to collaborate with EMVCo, the FIDO Alliance and local regulators to ensure adherence to standardized authentication practices, particularly in international deployments. Eklof says in markets like Bangladesh, Idex has “diligently worked with regulators to secure approval, highlighting our commitment to regulatory compliance.”

But adaptability is an asset, too. While the company believes in the imminent consolidation of multiple services and use cases – per Eklof, “consumers will be able to combine payments, loyalty cards, transport, and personal ID into one single biometric smart card, removing the need for multiple forms of access and authentication” – it is also aware that new use cases continue to emerge, particularly in the digital identity space.

The CEO says Idex has just entered into a new market with the launch of School ID and payment wallets in Kenya, a collaboration with partner Vasmobile. “The new biometric School ID cards will securely manage access to school facilities and student health insurance, facilitate campus payments, and secure attendance monitoring.”

“With more than three million students in Kenya and 60 percent of Africa’s total population under the age of 25, students are an important demographic group for growth and drivers of financial and digital inclusion.”

Many of us still likely have a collection of cards in our wallets, pockets or drawers. The credit card and the driver’s license are as iconic of the late twentieth century as the jet airliner or the suburban mall. Old habits die hard, especially if innovations keep up with customer demand.

“As an industry,” Eklof says, “biometrics has evolved with the direct purpose of addressing data privacy concerns around tracking, monitoring, or owning data. Our ongoing mission is to ensure trusted identity across all realms, especially in the critical domain of payments, which constitutes a significant daily requirement for consumers in today’s predominantly online world.” For now, Idex believes the biometric smart card is the smart bet.

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Idex sees the near future consolidated on a biometric smart card | Biometric Update