Fingerprints today announced that its touch sensor is being used in the first US-based pilot of a new dual-interface (chip- and contactless-enabled) payment card with Mountain America Credit Union. As announced last week Fingerprints is also excited to bring Biometric technology to the Visa Pilot with Bank of Cyprus. The biometric payment cards in these trails are using a FPC1300-series sensor from Fingerprints, which excels in terms of low power consumption, a key requirement for handling both contact and contactless transactions.

For retailers, there are no infrastructure changes to carry out and it is an easy-to-use, yet secure, solution for consumers since there is no need to remember a PIN code. Once the fingerprint is enrolled, the user only needs to place the finger on the card to authenticate their identity and initiate payment. Another important advantage of the technology is that it has the potential to improve speed at the checkout compared to PIN or signature authentication, benefiting both retailers and shoppers.

“Collaboration is key in the smartcard and payments ecosystem. We are proud to be part of these first-of-its-kind market trials with Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments. This signifies that we are entering the next phase in the execution of our strategy for dual-interface biometric payment cards” says Thomas Rex, SVP, Business Line Smartcards, at Fingerprints.