Poland’s first biometric card developed by Thales comes into customers’ hands

•    Since 20th of December, Poland’s first EMV biometric cards are coming into hands of Bank Pocztowy’s customers. The payment is realized only after the biometric verification of the cardholder’s fingerprint.
•    The use of biometric authentication in a contactless payment card significantly enhances the security of funds, ensures users’ privacy and allows transactions to be carried out at a social distance.
•    This state of the art solution was designed by Thales which not only developed the card, but is also responsible for its packaging and distribution.
 

Since 20th of December, Poland’s first biometric card is available for corporate customers of Bank Pocztowy. When paying with this card, the transaction is authorised through biometric verification of the cardholder’s fingerprint, regardless of the amount. This ambitious project, which aimed to introduce the innovative mean of payment, lasted five months and involved cooperation between Bank Pocztowy, Fiserv Polska S.A., Mastercard and Thales. The latter provides a comprehensive offer, and apart from developing the card with a reader for biometric fingerprint encoding, it furnishes modern packaging, product personalization and its distribution to final users.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic reduces cash circulation and the latest research shows that Poles are definitely part of this trend¹. In addition, card payments account for 62% of all transactions in Poland^{2 &3}. The new payment card using biometric authentication enables modern, fast and secure cashless payments.

As an experienced provider of biometric technologies, Thales pays particular attention to security in the development of new solutions. It is important to recognize that cashless transactions with biometric verification ensure a very high level of security. This authentication method makes it impossible for a third party to use the card, so a card which has been stolen or lost becomes useless. At the same time, contactless transactions are convenient, let us practice the necessary social distancing in the pandemic reality and do not demand to enter a PIN code, which reduces the risk of contact with potential viruses. Also, the fingerprint reference data are securely stored in the chip of the card. They are neither sent to bank servers, POS terminals or ATMs, which guarantees the complete privacy of the owner.

The new product, currently available for corporate customers of Bank Pocztowy, will also be targeted at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in January 2022. The card is a particularly convenient alternative for business account holders. The transactions with EMV biometric card create a mobile payment experience, however, without the need to register the card e.g. in a mobile application. In addition, the biometric card will never be discharged. It gets all the energy it needs from the Point-of-Sales terminals for each transaction and never relies on a battery. 

The biometric Mastercard card offered to Bank Pocztowy’s customers has a special fingerprint sensor designed to work better than mobile fingerprint sensors, as its performances have been homologated for the first time in the industry by independent and Mastercard-accredited labs. In order to realize the transaction, the cardholder needs to place their finger on a sensor. If the biometric data matches the one recorded previously, the light on the card turns green and the payment is processed. In case a fraudster wants to use the card, the cardholder assets are protected: the light on the card turns red and the fingerprint-based transaction is rejected.

 ^{1) National Bank of Poland report (April 2021) „Zwyczaje płatnicze w Polsce w 2020 r. Podstawowe wyniki badania”: nearly 35% of respondents declared a change in payment habits. Nearly 82% of them use cash less frequently (https://www.nbp.pl/systemplatniczy/zwyczaje_platnicze/zwyczaje_platnicze_Polakow_2020.pdf).}

^{2)  Survey conducted in October 2020 by Pollster resarch centre on behalf of the Warsaw Banking Institute (https://www.wib.org.pl/warto-bezgotowkowo-2020-pandemia-zmienia-zwyczaje-platnicze-polakow/).}

^{3)  Acording to the „Informacja o kartach płatniczych” of the National Bank of Poland for the second quarter of 2021, the number of non-cash transactions using payment card increased by 32% compared to the same period in 2020 and by 25% compared to 2019 (https://www.nbp.pl/systemplatniczy/karty/q_02_2021.pdf).}