ST and Fingerprints cooperate on biometric payment card

Semiconductor company STMicroelectronics (ST) has teamed with biometric company Fingerprint Cards (Fingerprints) to develop a biometric system-on-card (BSoC) solution based on fingerprint-recognition technology, addressing the market demand to enhance contactless payment card security and convenience.

The BSoC integration combines ST’s latest secure-payment technology based on the ST31/STPay chipset and STM32 general-purpose microcontrollers with Fingerprints’ next-generation T-shape sensor module to provide a turnkey, battery-less, secure solution for the banking market.

“Cost-effective and user-friendly biometric authentication will significantly increase the security level and user convenience of banking transactions. It may let banks raise or remove the maximum allowable transaction value for contactless payments,” said Laurent Degauque, Marketing Director, Secure Microcontrollers, STMicroelectronics.

“Fingerprint Cards brings valuable and market-proven expertise in solutions for battery-less and space-constrained devices. Their products combining powerful processing and low energy consumption are ideal companions to our STPay solutions for payment cards.”

The contactless payment card will be the first target under the agreement, with the intention to extend to other markets such as identification, health, access and transportation cards.

“This is a powerful collaboration to create innovative and optimised solutions that not only make it easier for card makers to integrate biometrics in their portfolio, but also bring the total cost down,” said Michel Roig, SVP for Payments and Access BL at Fingerprint Cards. “In the end, strengthening the security for contactless payments will offer consumers a worry-less payment experience.”

Running on ST’s flexible Java Card/Global Platform Operating Systems (OS), ST’s STPay secure-payment products ensure support for multiple international and regional payment schemes, with security features built in. STPay solutions benefit from EMVCo and CC EAL 6+ hardware certifications, software certifications up to OS and application level, and ST’s secure pre-personalisation services that create a trusted supply chain.

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