- Email: [email protected]
Pay By Touch forms alliance with Certegy
BUSINESS WATCH
Company news • Veridicom International has ventured into the Brazilian market partnering with a domestic technology integrator, Inteligencia Informatica. Inteligencia Informatica is a software integration specialist with approximately 250 employees and several offices across Brazil. Inteligencia’s customers include the First Regional Court where 400 court personnel are using Veridicom fingerprint sensors to authenticate their identity. • Bioscrypt has announced the purchase of fingerprint matching algorithm technology from Areté Associates (Areté) for US$1 million. This technology includes all patents and trade secrets related to Bioscrypt’s algorithm that were not previously purchased by Bioscrypt as part of its acquisition of Biometric Identification Inc in 2001. Bioscrypt had previously licensed this technology under an exclusive License Agreement with Areté, which required royalty payments totalling US$3.16 million be paid to Areté over the life of the agreement. Following this transaction, Bioscrypt will have no further financial obligation to Areté. The acquisition includes eight patents and nine patent applications, of which several provide extensive patent protection for Bioscrypt’s pattern-based fingerprint matching technology. • The Chinese Patent Office, under the State Intellectual Property Office, has granted SecuGen a 20-year patent for its key fingerprint recognition sensor hardware patent. • Smart card manufacturer Axalto and Intercede have announced their collaboration in the smart card and identity management market with a combined solution designed to enable businesses, government agencies and educational establishments to protect their PCs, networks, virtual private networks (VPNs), buildings and facilities. The combined offering provides lifecycle management of smart cards, digital certificates, Open Platform applets and biometric credentials.
6
acquisition
Precise Biometrics snaps up Fyrplus Teknik In a bid to enhance its position within the multibiometrics and smart ID cards market, Precise Biometrics has acquired 100% of the shares in Swedish IT consultancy Fyrplus Teknik. Through the acquisition, Precise Biometrics will boost its annual sales revenues by about SEK 20 million (US$2.87 million). In addition the acquisition will increase its employees to 60, almost twice the size of the original company. According to Christer Bergman, president and CEO of Precise Biometrics: “Through the acquisition, Precise Biometrics supplements its core operations within fingerprint technology and smart cards with additional skills and knowledge within multi-biometrics and the implementation of biometric solutions.” Fyrplus Teknik has experience in multibiometric projects which combine different modalities, such as fingerprint, iris and facial recognition. Fyrplus Teknik has implemented projects in the travel, pharmaceuticals and healthcare sectors, predominantly in Scandinavia. Lennart Olsson, president of Fyrplus Teknik said: “We have long worked in partnership with Precise Biometrics in various projects, including Scandinavian Airline Services. There is a great deal of synergy between us which will now add value to the group, for example in the development of biometric solutions and customer relations.” The companies claim that the market for biometric solutions is developing rapidly and that increasing numbers of projects call for multibiometric solutions. There are several national projects on the table now, the companies said, which involve a combination of multiple biometric technologies. These include, for example, the new EU passport and the national ID card in Finland. The acquisition was completed on 17 January 2005 and is being financed with cash. The purchase price totalled SEK 5-7 million (US$718,000-US$1 million), partly conditional on future profits. Fyrplus Teknik had sales of SEK 26.8 million (US$3.85 million) for 2003/2004 (16 months) with a profit of SEK 1.5 million (US$215,000) after financial items. Precise Biometrics' sales for the first nine months of 2004 were SEK 22.6 million (US$3.24 million). Lennart Olsson will remain president of Fyrplus Teknik. Precise Biometrics also confirmed separately that it had received an order from SafeNet for 7,500 Precise100 MC fingerprint and card readers and Match-on-Card software. This represents a continuation of a deployment to a government agency by SafeNet and Precise Biometrics. Precise Biometrics received the two previous orders from Datakey, recently acquired by SafeNet. The
government agency is deploying SafeNet smart cards and related software along with Precise Biometrics readers to authenticate employees to their IT infrastructure. Contact: Christer Bergman at Precise Biometrics, Tel: +46 730 35 67 26, email: [email protected] Lennart Olsson at Fyrplus Teknik, Tel: +46 730 39 10 04, email: [email protected]
alliance
Pay By Touch forms alliance with Certegy Pay By Touch, a company focused on offering fingerprint-based payment options for shoppers, has announced a marketing alliance with Certegy, a Florida-based transaction processing company that provides cheque risk management and cheque-cashing services. The new alliance will allow Pay By Touch users to cash government and payroll cheques at Pay By Touch merchant locations across the United States. According to the suppliers, the one-time enrolment for the Pay By Touch/Certegy cheque cashing service takes about a minute at participating retailers. Once users are verified with their government-issued ID and social security number, they simply scan their finger and add a search number (usually a phone number) to create a Pay By Touch wallet. Whenever a customer wants to cash a cheque, they place their finger on the scanner and enter their search number. The biometric information authenticates the customer's identity and Certegy uses its risk modelling technology to authorise the transaction. The result is increased customer loyalty and reduced exposure to fraudulent transactions, the companies claim. The Pay By Touch/Certegy cheque-cashing service is an additional service to the Pay By Touch core offering, which gives customers the option of paying for purchases using their fingerprint linked to their financial accounts and loyalty programmes. In a recent announcement, Pay By Touch said that all Piggly Wiggly shoppers in South Carolina and Southeast Georgia will be able to pay for their groceries using its system from May. Since July 2004, Piggly Wiggly customers in four South Carolina stores have been using Pay By Touch to buy groceries. Research revealed that 50% of Piggly Wiggly's Pay By Touch users enjoy the convenience of not having to present cards, cheques, or their PFC/Greenbax rewards cards at the point of sale. Users also indicated that they wanted to see Pay By Touch in more stores. Contact: Caroline Powell for Pay By Touch, Tel: +44 20 8297 5388, email: [email protected]
Biometric Technology Today • February 2005
Company news • Veridicom International has ventured into the Brazilian market partnering with a domestic technology integrator, Inteligencia Informatica. Inteligencia Informatica is a software integration specialist with approximately 250 employees and several offices across Brazil. Inteligencia’s customers include the First Regional Court where 400 court personnel are using Veridicom fingerprint sensors to authenticate their identity. • Bioscrypt has announced the purchase of fingerprint matching algorithm technology from Areté Associates (Areté) for US$1 million. This technology includes all patents and trade secrets related to Bioscrypt’s algorithm that were not previously purchased by Bioscrypt as part of its acquisition of Biometric Identification Inc in 2001. Bioscrypt had previously licensed this technology under an exclusive License Agreement with Areté, which required royalty payments totalling US$3.16 million be paid to Areté over the life of the agreement. Following this transaction, Bioscrypt will have no further financial obligation to Areté. The acquisition includes eight patents and nine patent applications, of which several provide extensive patent protection for Bioscrypt’s pattern-based fingerprint matching technology. • The Chinese Patent Office, under the State Intellectual Property Office, has granted SecuGen a 20-year patent for its key fingerprint recognition sensor hardware patent. • Smart card manufacturer Axalto and Intercede have announced their collaboration in the smart card and identity management market with a combined solution designed to enable businesses, government agencies and educational establishments to protect their PCs, networks, virtual private networks (VPNs), buildings and facilities. The combined offering provides lifecycle management of smart cards, digital certificates, Open Platform applets and biometric credentials.
6
acquisition
Precise Biometrics snaps up Fyrplus Teknik In a bid to enhance its position within the multibiometrics and smart ID cards market, Precise Biometrics has acquired 100% of the shares in Swedish IT consultancy Fyrplus Teknik. Through the acquisition, Precise Biometrics will boost its annual sales revenues by about SEK 20 million (US$2.87 million). In addition the acquisition will increase its employees to 60, almost twice the size of the original company. According to Christer Bergman, president and CEO of Precise Biometrics: “Through the acquisition, Precise Biometrics supplements its core operations within fingerprint technology and smart cards with additional skills and knowledge within multi-biometrics and the implementation of biometric solutions.” Fyrplus Teknik has experience in multibiometric projects which combine different modalities, such as fingerprint, iris and facial recognition. Fyrplus Teknik has implemented projects in the travel, pharmaceuticals and healthcare sectors, predominantly in Scandinavia. Lennart Olsson, president of Fyrplus Teknik said: “We have long worked in partnership with Precise Biometrics in various projects, including Scandinavian Airline Services. There is a great deal of synergy between us which will now add value to the group, for example in the development of biometric solutions and customer relations.” The companies claim that the market for biometric solutions is developing rapidly and that increasing numbers of projects call for multibiometric solutions. There are several national projects on the table now, the companies said, which involve a combination of multiple biometric technologies. These include, for example, the new EU passport and the national ID card in Finland. The acquisition was completed on 17 January 2005 and is being financed with cash. The purchase price totalled SEK 5-7 million (US$718,000-US$1 million), partly conditional on future profits. Fyrplus Teknik had sales of SEK 26.8 million (US$3.85 million) for 2003/2004 (16 months) with a profit of SEK 1.5 million (US$215,000) after financial items. Precise Biometrics' sales for the first nine months of 2004 were SEK 22.6 million (US$3.24 million). Lennart Olsson will remain president of Fyrplus Teknik. Precise Biometrics also confirmed separately that it had received an order from SafeNet for 7,500 Precise100 MC fingerprint and card readers and Match-on-Card software. This represents a continuation of a deployment to a government agency by SafeNet and Precise Biometrics. Precise Biometrics received the two previous orders from Datakey, recently acquired by SafeNet. The
government agency is deploying SafeNet smart cards and related software along with Precise Biometrics readers to authenticate employees to their IT infrastructure. Contact: Christer Bergman at Precise Biometrics, Tel: +46 730 35 67 26, email: [email protected] Lennart Olsson at Fyrplus Teknik, Tel: +46 730 39 10 04, email: [email protected]
alliance
Pay By Touch forms alliance with Certegy Pay By Touch, a company focused on offering fingerprint-based payment options for shoppers, has announced a marketing alliance with Certegy, a Florida-based transaction processing company that provides cheque risk management and cheque-cashing services. The new alliance will allow Pay By Touch users to cash government and payroll cheques at Pay By Touch merchant locations across the United States. According to the suppliers, the one-time enrolment for the Pay By Touch/Certegy cheque cashing service takes about a minute at participating retailers. Once users are verified with their government-issued ID and social security number, they simply scan their finger and add a search number (usually a phone number) to create a Pay By Touch wallet. Whenever a customer wants to cash a cheque, they place their finger on the scanner and enter their search number. The biometric information authenticates the customer's identity and Certegy uses its risk modelling technology to authorise the transaction. The result is increased customer loyalty and reduced exposure to fraudulent transactions, the companies claim. The Pay By Touch/Certegy cheque-cashing service is an additional service to the Pay By Touch core offering, which gives customers the option of paying for purchases using their fingerprint linked to their financial accounts and loyalty programmes. In a recent announcement, Pay By Touch said that all Piggly Wiggly shoppers in South Carolina and Southeast Georgia will be able to pay for their groceries using its system from May. Since July 2004, Piggly Wiggly customers in four South Carolina stores have been using Pay By Touch to buy groceries. Research revealed that 50% of Piggly Wiggly's Pay By Touch users enjoy the convenience of not having to present cards, cheques, or their PFC/Greenbax rewards cards at the point of sale. Users also indicated that they wanted to see Pay By Touch in more stores. Contact: Caroline Powell for Pay By Touch, Tel: +44 20 8297 5388, email: [email protected]
Biometric Technology Today • February 2005