French Group, IDEMIA, enjoys the boom in biometric identification

The group develops for Société Générale Bank a biometric credit card to secure contactless payments

SECURITY

Surge of contactless payments, development of telemedicine and distance learning, generalization of identity control for access in buildings and public spaces, rise of online purchase… The pandemic crisis was an accelerator for the digital transition in many sectors for whose the need of identification and transaction security are crucial. All of this, to avoid fraud.

For the World leader in Augmented identity, IDEMIA, born in 2017 after the joint-venture between Oberthur Technologies and Morpho, ex-division of Safran for identity and Security, the crisis revealed opportunities.

” We have passed through the Covid-19 crisis with some services that disclosed essential activities. We have remained operational, despite of the crisis and have also shown resilience. Only 20% of our activities (identity documents) suffered by the reason of city halls closing.” Explains Pierre Barrial, who took on IDEMIA Group as new CEO from 1st July. Besides him there was Yann Delabrière (Former CEO of Faurencia) who was temporarily at the head of IDEMIA, and now as the president of the board of directors.

The changing in governance arrives when Idemia seeks to accelerate after <Clarifying strategy and reviewing its offer>. Despite of pandemic period, < Our objectives are unchangeable: We foresee growth in terms of turnover of 5 to 6% by 2022 and a rise of 10% in our results (EBITIDA)> Sums up Pierre Barrial. In 2019, Idemia made 2,3 billion of Euros in total revenue and 400 million of Euros in gross margin – operational profit.

Idemia surfs on the market waves of – security, biometric identification, connectivity – which should grow 7% and reach 12,6 billion of Euros in the world, from 2019 to 2022. By 2025, only the market of digital identification for governments and enterprises will weight 6 billion.

Facial Recognition

Installed in every continent and fitted with ranges of products for institutional and private sector, Idemia has positioned itself as trusted partner of banks (1800 clients), mobiles operators (500 references) which prepare the deploy of 5G, connected vehicles, new usages in telemedicine and e-education. Inside these heterogenic fields, <Everything lies on the same bricks of technology that Idemia masters with French laboratories of world-class: Cryptography and artificial intelligence – AI, as well as microchips manufactured by the company on its own. 1,5 billion of microchips, credit cards and identity documents are commercialized per year.> Develops Yann Delabrière.

In the field of facial recognition, Idemia is currently adapting its products installed in airports for border control to identify people using masks.

< The objective is, thru the use of sophisticated software, to control the identity by taking into account just half of the face, particularly using iris recognition. All of that in a fluid and efficient manner.> Affirms Pierre Barrial.

In the bank sector, Idemia focus on solving security flaws linked with contactless payments. When paying, card’s holder will put the finger on a sensor embedded in the card. Idemia develops a biometric credit card that will be tested by Société Générale in the end of 2021. The bank aims to propose the biometric credit card in 2022. Still on the same field, Idemia is a direct competitor of Thales Group, which develops the same technology of biometric credit card for BNP Paribas. The bank predicts to test something in between 10 000 and 15 000 credit cards this autumn.

The invention of biometric card seeks to eliminate the ceiling of expenditure on contactless payments, by enhancing security and assuring that the card’s holder is the one making the payment. This process will be authenticated by card’s holder biometric data.

Source: Inspired of Véronique Guillermard from Le Figaro

Pierre Barrial announced as new Idemia’s CEO from1st July