The Next Big Thing? Biometric Fingerprint-Activated Credit Cards
Is 2022 the year that major credit card issuing banks around the world will move forward the adoption of advanced biometric technology-based cards? SmartMetric Inc., a provider of fingerprint-activated biometric credit cards, says 2022 is the year.
Based on independent market research commissioned by SmartMetric, nearly 70% of existing credit card holders in the USA are willing to pay $70 for such cards. The consumer research showed that the biggest motivator for consumers to pay for a biometric-secured credit card is the sense of added security these cards bring to the credit card user.
There are now nearly 11 billion EMV chip based cards issued and in use globally. A small adoption rate of only one percent (1%) would see more than 100 million fingerprint biometric credit cards to be issued in the future.
SmartMetric is now working with one of the world's largest credit card network brands to have its card officially approved. This will allow the SmartMetric biometric card to be then offered to banks around the world who use this credit and debit card network for card transactions.
SmartMetric has had difficulty like many in the technology manufacturing space regarding component supply. These difficulties have now been overcome and SmartMetric is looking at moving forward in early 2022 with the supply of its next generation biometric card to card issuers globally.
A credit card that has built inside, a fingerprint reader that when you touch a sensor on the surface of the card, scans your fingerprint in less than a second. Your fingerprint is then matched with your pre-stored fingerprint inside of the card and when a match occurs your card is turned on. Instant secure user validation that goes beyond the use of a PIN in protecting the use of a credit or debit card making a transaction.
The SmartMetric Biometric card solution is designed with its own internal power source. This enables the card to function and perform the fingerprint scan prior to the card being inserted in a reader. This allows the card to be used at regular ATM’s and in situations where the card is used in places like a restaurant where the card is taken away from the dining table to be processed.
The SmartMetric in-the-card fingerprint scanner allows for the card's chip to only work following a successful scan and match of the card user's fingerprint. The SmartMetric card does not need the card user to go into a bank branch to have their fingerprint stored on their new biometric card. Instead, the SmartMetric Biometric Card allows the card user to enroll their fingerprint when they first receive it at home as simply as it is when enrolling your fingerprint on a smartphone.
Touch and store read once technology developed by SmartMetric for its biometric card allows mass card issuing financial institutions to issue their cards direct to the consumers as they normally do without the need for consumers to come into a bank branch to activate their new biometric card.
SmartMetric is a USA-based company with sales and marketing partnerships in Latin America, Europe and United States. Engineering of the biometric card electronics is done in-house and is the owned intellectual property of SmartMetric.
SmartMetric has issued patents and patents pending surrounding its biometric card technology.
Figures published by EMVCo 1 reveal that by year end of 2020, 10.8 billion EMV chip cards have been issued by financial institutions and were in global circulation – a massive increase of nearly 1 Billion credit and debit EMV cards compared to the previous twelve months.
In addition, EMVCo reports that 86% of all card-present transactions conducted globally using EMV® chip technology. This is based on the data that could be obtained from American Express, Discover, JCB, Mastercard, UnionPay and Visa. It should be noted that, globally, 86.1% of transactions are EMV chip.