Thales has announced a new contactless payment card that integrates a biometric sensor, providing users with enhanced security and convenience. This latest generation of cards represents a key milestone in the payment space, said the firm.
The company revealed that the Thales EMV contactless biometric payment card is the only solution in the industry fully certified by major EMV payment schemes like MasterCard and Visa. After a series of successful trials around the world, the solution has been commercialised in several countries.
Bertrand Knopf, SVP Banking and Payment Solutions at Thales, said, “The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the tech sector to develop touchless solutions and has indirectly resulted in higher transaction levels being processed without a second authentication factor.
“The biometric payment card allows contactless payment for any amount while safeguarding the privacy of this very personal data.”
The contactless biometric card dramatically simplifies proximity payments and also provides an essential level of privacy and confidence.
The user’s fingerprint data is loaded on the card via a simple and secure personal enrollment process, carried out from home or at a bank branch.
In addition, none of the biometric details used for the enrolment are shared with any third party; the fingerprint in the card’s chip is only used to provide a local authentication of the cardholder when paying contactless.
Neither the retailer nor the bank get access to biometric data as it stays securely stored in the chip of the card.
In terms of security, the biometric card ultimately means that a lost or stolen card is useless without the owner’s fingerprint to authenticate a contactless transaction.
In such trustworthy payment environments, there is no need to set any payment limit.
Additionally, whenever the cardholder’s fingerprint can’t be used, for example, for ATM cash withdrawals – use of a PIN code is still possible as a fallback solution.
