SmartMetric, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has been able to address a compliance change required by the global payments network the company is working with for the worldwide release of its biometric credit card.
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There are four large global payments networks with two of these four accounting for the vast majority of global credit card transactions. The payments networks are the interconnect medium that connects credit card readers in stores and gas pumps as well as ATMs. For clarification these payments networks do not issue cards themselves but do have their respective brand names on the credit cards that are issued by banks and card issuing institutions.
All credit cards that operate over the payments networks need to be approved of by the payments network before a bank is able to issue the credit card to its customers.
The two largest credit card payments networks are Visa and MasterCard. Card issuers and card manufacturers must gain permission from the card payments networks prior to a card being manufactured and then issued to the public for the card to operate over either of these companies’ payments networks.
SmartMetric has been working with one of the largest global payments networks in order to have its biometric card meet the network’s licensing and functional requirements so that its biometric card can then be used by card issuing banks around the world.
One of the most recent issues that SmartMetric faced was the need to change its EMV chip used in its card. The licensing and approving network required that SmartMetric adopt a different EMV credit card chip for its product approval. The EMV chip is the credit card chip is the square chip found on the top surface of what is called chip credit cards. As an aside, there are more than 10 billion1Â chip cards issued globally.
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The required change of our EMV chip created a supply chain issue since the acquisition of a replacement was being quoted for delivery into mid to late 2023. Luckily for SmartMetric, our supplier is now quoting approximately 10 weeks for supply of this critical component for our biometric credit card. Just like other areas of the electronics parts world, credit card payments chips are in huge demand and have long lead times for supply.
While no one is pleased to suffer supply chain delays we are extremely pleased with our supportive chip supplier and are excited with us moving ever closer to the release of our payments network-conforming new biometric credit card, said today SmartMetric’s President and CEO, Chaya Hendrick.
Bringing a brand-new type of credit card into existence that meets the approval and licensing requirements of the credit card industry is no small feat. However, we are excited with the incredible prospects for the company as we move forward with our amazing next generation credit card with built in biometric fingerprint security, said Chaya Hendrick.
SmartMetric’s Biometric card addresses the multibillion existing chip-based credit and debit card market. Figures published by EMVCo reveal that by year end of 2020, 10.8 billion EMV® chip cards have been issued by financial institutions and were in global circulation – a massive increase of nearly 1 billion credit and debit EMV® cards compared to the previous twelve months.
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