These technologies will be applied to existing means of payment such as credit or debit cards, mobile, ATMs and Points of Sale (POS) terminals, to enhance transaction security for financial institutions and customer convenience.

As the mobile banking and payment market expands, so does the need for highly secure solutions such as biometrics, tokenization, digital signature and other solutions to protect consumers against identity theft and fraud. Morpho’s collaboration with Visa intends to explore innovative security solutions in response to the strong growth in this market.

Morpho and Visa are working together to explore several new payment concepts, which are being co-demonstrated by the two companies at Mobile World Congress, February 22-25 in Barcelona, Spain (Visa Booth 6D40, Hall 6), as well as Visa’s innovation center at its San Francisco headquarters. Some of the demonstrations include biometrics for proximity payments, including the use of MorphoWave™ technology, the world’s first biometric solution capturing and matching four fingerprints with a single hand movement in less than a second.

“Visa is always exploring new technologies which enhance payment security and convenience for financial institutions and their customers,” said Bill Gajda, senior vice president of innovation and strategic partnerships for Visa. “We are excited to demonstrate and explore the power of these new authentication capabilities with Morpho at Mobile World Congress.”

Anne Bouverot, CEO of Morpho, commented: “We are excited to work with Visa as a technology partner, as part of an agreement to bring innovation to the explosive market of digital payment and banking. Building on a number of successful proofs of concept, we have seen the enthusiasm shared by customers for new solutions that combine security and convenience We are convinced by the potential of biometrics as a cornerstone technology for the future of secure payments. In addition to touchless fingerprint recognition for proximity payments, we are incorporating facial recognition capability into smartphones and tablets, enabling users to validate payments through a simple selfie”

According to the global market research firm TrendForce, by the end of 2016, total revenue of the worldwide mobile payment market is estimated to arrive at US$620 billion, representing a massive growth of 37.8% year on year.1 Biometric usage in banking continues to rapidly expand. Experts at Goode Intelligence forecast that by 2017 there will be one billion users accessing banking services through biometric systems.