An analysis of future trends in the Chinese and US EMV (Europay-Mastercard-Visa) payment cards markets has found that biometric-enabled cards could play an increasingly important role.The report by ABI Research warns that the industry will soon experience a ripple effect driven by a flattening market in China and a dip in U.S. shipments due to overstocking.”Smart card and secure IC vendors like Oberthur Technologies, Gemalto, G&D, Infineon, NXP, and STMicroelectronics now wonder how big the U.S. dip will be and its overall impact on worldwide shipments,” says Phil Sealy, Senior Analyst at ABI Research. “There remains a real risk that the 2016 dip will extend into 2017 as EMV issuance stabilities, stock levels deplete, and a natural card replacement cycle based on a three-year expiry rate comes into play.”However, emerging trends such as biometric security on cards could offset this decline.”Biometric cards featuring integrated sensors that identify their card holders will provide an additional strong authentication method for physical payments”, writes the groupIt also notes the importance of display cards with dCVV and/or one-time password (OTP) functionalities will replace the static three-digit card verification code currently located on the rear of debit and credit cards with a small display screen that changes the card holder's unique card verification code every few minutes.”The new card models will open up the next wave of revenue growth opportunity within the payment cards market for secure IC and smart card vendors alike,” concludes Sealy. “Those that already invested in these technologies are well positioned to maximize this next generation opportunity.”In April, Norway's Next Biometrics announced that it had developed the “world's first” Smart Card compatible flexible fingerprint sensor.The firm also said that NEXT Biometrics had received the industry's first biometric smart card volume order. The initial order has a value of 12 million Norwegian Krone (NOK) (US£1.4m) and shipments are scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2016. The first shipments will consist of rigid sensors.For an exclusive analysis of this emerging smart card market, see here.

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