Fingerprint access demand spikes among Swedes; domestic providers ready to help

Sweden loves its stylish design, pickled fish, saunas in winter – and, apparently, biometrics. A new study from Visa on the future of commerce highlights how confidence in biometrics is reaching new highs among Swedes, with one in three saying they would happily use their fingerprints to unlock everything. More than half (54 percent) are open to using a unique digital identity, with 41 percent believing it will have a positive societal impact.

A release from Visa says that nearly half of respondents to the survey (which polled 8,000 respondents in a representative sample from Sweden, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany and the UK as well as 516 business decision-makers) trust biometrics more than passwords. And among those not already using biometrics, 46 percent are open to adopting biometric authentication in the near future.

“Sweden is on the threshold of a revolution in digital identity,” says Fredrik Lindquist, head of Sweden at Visa. “Our research shows a remarkable shift in consumer attitudes, with Swedes increasingly seeing biometrics as the future of secure and flexible identification. “This gives Sweden a unique opportunity to lead the development of a robust digital identity ecosystem that benefits both individuals and businesses.”

The other side of the coin, of course, is privacy. Concerns about reliability, information sharing and data protection are partly to be assuaged with education. Highly visible use cases such as biometrics in airports and hotels will be part of normalization.

In the end, trust will become firm when security does. Visa has a bullish outlook, predicting that improved security offered by biometrics could lead to an annual reduction in fraud of 483 million euros.

Lindquist says the potential financial impact of biometric authentication is “significant, but unlocking it requires building trust and demonstrating value.” He wants digital IDs to “create a safer and more inclusive digital future for everyone.”

Visa’s announcement concludes with a sweeping statement. “The Swedish appetite for digital transformation, particularly their embrace of biometrics, signals a bright future for digital identity solutions with the potential to reshape not only commerce but the very fabric of our interconnected world.”

Swedish providers positioned to meet ‘growing demand’

As pandemic lockdowns fade from memory, fingerprints and physical card options could be mounting a comeback.

Recent research from Idemia showed biometric payment cards gaining traction around the world. Zwipe has partnered with Sweden’s Seraline on a new generation of biometric cards for payment, physical and logical access control and identification solutions. In September, Gothenburg-based Fingerprint Cards and Infineon Technologies unveiled SECORA Pay Bio, a complete package of biometric payment card technologies.

Infineon, which provides semiconductors for select hardware authentication devices from Stockholm-based Yubico, has also signed an extended cooperation agreement with Lund-based Precise Biometrics to integrate biometric technology into Infineon sensors for “a packaged option featuring Infineon’s PSoC Fingerprint sensor combined with Precise’s fingerprint algorithm software which is optimized for Infineon’s Traveo T2G MCU.”

While the agreement solidifies an existing relationship between the two companies, the new arrangement will allow for fuller integration leading to faster speeds to market, targeting the automotive industry. The release says product demonstrations at the Embedded World trade fair in Germany and at CES in the US “highlighted the use of fingerprints to unlock cars, adjust driver settings and authenticate payments” for premium services, digital content, entertainment, charging, parking or tolls .

Joakim Nydemark, CEO of Precise Biometrics, calls it “truly exciting to take another step in our collaboration with Infineon and jointly create a packaged product that becomes part of Infineon’s offering to the automotive industry. It is a testament to our strength that a leading hardware supplier like Infineon has chosen Precise Biometrics as its partner in this growing vertical. With Infineon’s global sales organization, there is great potential to further accelerate growth for Precise in the automotive industry.”

Ralf Koedel, vice president of automotive microcontroller at Infineon Technologies, says the partnership is in response to “a growing demand for biometric solutions in the automotive industry.”

Article Topics

biometrics | consumer adoption | fingerprint biometrics | Fingerprint Cards | Infineon | Precise Biometrics | Sweden | Visa