EUROPEAN BUSINESS: Vince, please tell us more about IDEX Biometrics and how the company has evolved over the recent years to meet changing user needs?
“Based in Norway and the US, IDEX Biometrics is a global technology leader in biometrics, offering fingerprint authentication solutions across payments, access control, and digital identity to create unmatched convenience and security for users.
Scientifically developed by leading engineers, our solutions have evolved alongside our changing payment conventions. The pandemic accelerated the need for robust consumer protection and a reinvented user experience within banking, e-commerce, and access. Our biometric payment card solutions allow users to securely make contactless payments without limits, secured by their fingerprint. Security is built into our sensors, meaning the fingerprint image is encrypted and cannot be hacked or manipulated. And with the rise of digital ID’s data privacy concerns, biometric smart cards store your data safely on the card as opposed to clouds or servers. It’s a completely contactless, frictionless, and quick experience that’s revolutionizing payments, fintech, and security.
The biometric smart card market is expected to generate more than $5 billion in global revenue and account for 15% of the market by 2026. Even with this growth, the opportunities for biometric authentication are far from being exhausted. Biometric smart cards can enable citizens to securely and seamlessly access everything from public transport networks to public services – all with their fingerprint.”
EUROPEAN BUSINESS: What are some of the biggest challenges you see in the payments industry? Tell us your services and solutions, and how does IDEX Biometrics help enhance security of payments with biometrics?
“While demand for digital financial services is at an all-time high, building new solutions requires strong ecosystem coordination. At global scale, this is an enormous opportunity tainted by some challenges linked to the economic and political uncertainties.
Like other industries, we are impacted by the geopolitical and economic uncertainties facing the world. The pandemic followed by the war in Ukraine has escalated existing supply disruptions, with the ongoing chip shortage causing reverberations across many sectors, including technology and financial services. The global chip (semiconductor) shortage is impacting the biometric industry, as well as the delivery of payment cards worldwide and the manufacturing of consumer electronics. Some fintechs seem hesitant to push their innovation agenda due to the global chip shortage.”
EUROPEAN BUSINESS: What are some of the latest biometric technology trends that you’ve been observing across markets that you’d like to highlight? What are the competitive advantages of IDEX Biometrics?
“With biometric technology becoming increasingly familiar and in demand, authentication has started to play an important role in more sectors beyond the world of finance. In 2022, the French parliament approved a €20 million project to launch a ‘biometric’ version of the carte vitale health insurance card. This represents a patient-centric shift in healthcare. By integrating biometrics with healthcare ID, medical establishments generate greater patient trust while also streamlining their data management.
Blockchain solutions are also positioned to benefit from biometric technology. By integrating fingerprint biometrics with cold wallets, users can access and control their crypto funds in a highly secure and authenticated way. The world’s first, next-generation Web3 biometric card is already under development by IDEX Biometrics and our partners. This represents a myriad of opportunities to combine blockchain and biometric technologies as well as help restore consumer trust in cryptocurrency.
The advantages of IDEX Biometrics lie in our tech innovation and focus on user experience. With more than 5000 data points and extensive research across more than 14 geographies, user experience is the focal point of our design. Our larger sensor allows for greater accuracy and the ability to hold the card more naturally.
We focus on protecting the user’s data. The fingerprint image never gets stored on or transferred to bank servers. Instead, it’s safely secured on the card. During registration, we store and encrypt an abstract digital representation of your fingerprint which is impossible to reconstruct and derive an image from. The IDEX sensor can detect and block if someone is trying to hack the card.”
EUROPEAN BUSINESS: Your company has established many partnerships in Europe, Asia and other regions, tell us more about your international business. Where do you see the greatest potential?
“Europe is the first area to adopt biometric payment cards. We also initiated a biometric payment card program with a UK issuer and processor of EMV-compliant payment cards. Europe represents a growing market opportunity with a sustained increase in card transactions reaching 56.3 billion in 2021. We’re continuing to partner with key card solution providers in Europe to bring our biometric payment cards to the UK market.
We recently announced our biometric payment card launches in Turkey with a regional bank, in response to the growing demand for biometric payment cards. Turkey is one of the most innovative and largest payment card markets globally, with more than 250 million cards in circulation and 1.8 million acceptance locations. We are pleased to contribute to enhancing digital banking solutions and securing digital authentication across a variety of digital use cases in Turkey and around the world.
Expanding on Turkey, the Middle East is a key market for IDEX Biometrics. One of the largest banks in the region deployed a full-scale biometric payment card launch with our partner IDEMIA. Following this we received a volume production order from IDEMIA, representing the largest order to date for IDEX TrustedBio sensors. This represents a significant milestone in the mass commercialization of biometric payment cards.
Our partnerships and market opportunities also extend into the US, where the biometrics market size reached US$ 4.2 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach US$10.0 billion by 2027. One of our key US-based partners is Sentry Enterprises, which selected our sensor solution and the SLC38 chip from Infineon Technologies to power their next-generation biometric identity platform. ”
EUROPEAN BUSINESS: Vince, please tell us about yourself, your personal experience, the lessons you learnt. As the CEO, where are you focused now?
“With generations of engineers in my family, I began my professional career as an electrical engineer at RCA, working on analogue and digital design for military communication systems. My semiconductor career started with Intel just when the PC market was launching; it was an exciting time in the industry. It wasn’t until I started working for a startup company called Level One Communications that I got ‘the bug’ for entrepreneurialism.
I love the challenge of working in a smaller company environment. I’ve since served as CEO at three different start-ups including Sand 9 Inc., Vbrick Systems, and Sandburst Inc. leading a range of technology companies from the pre-revenue stage to significant revenues and scale.
Before joining IDEX Biometrics, I was Vice President of Strategy Development and Implementation at Infineon Technologies. I saw great potential in the technology of IDEX Biometrics and could see a future where everyone would be walking around with a biometric payment card in their wallet. That was a future I wanted to enable and be part of. I joined IDEX Biometrics because of the team’s strength, the solution’s unique technology, and the significant market opportunity I see for the company.”
