MEPS partners with Zwipe and Mastercard to launch biometric cards

Prior to this launch, MEPS worked closely with Zwipe and Mastercard to pilot and test the new cards over the course of several months. The pilot testing phase resulted in a milestone that allows banks and issuers to launch the cards in a quick and efficient manner. 

In the company press release, MEPS representatives revealed the company’s availability to provide banks and issuers in Jordan and the region with the world’s first Mastercard Zwipe biometric card. Mastercard officials talked about biometrics and the way they offer a secure way to verify identity. They also mentioned their new partnership with Zwipe and MEPS and highlighted their shared goals to offer high levels of security and privacy to protect consumers in the region. 

Middle East Payment Services (MEPS) was founded in 2009 and is an issuer and acquirer of Visa, MasterCard, and UnionPay. The company has established a presence in Jordan, Iraq, and Palestine, and it offers financial institutions, merchants, and corporations, a range of payment solutions in card issuance and hosting, as well as payment processing, alternative payments, ecommerce acquiring, point-of-sale (POS) acquiring, ATM driving and management.

Zwipe’s relationship with Mastercard

Zwipe AS’ Zwipe Pay Platform received the Component Conformity Statement certificate from Mastercard in August 2022. The CCS certificate allowed Zwipe's customers, the SCMs, to leverage Zwipe's certification results to obtain a Letter of Approval from Mastercard for their own biometric payment cards built on the Zwipe Pay platform. 

This certification confirmed that the Zwipe Pay biometric payment card platform met all the security, functionality, reliability, and performance standards required by Mastercard. At the time, Zwipe's complete end-to-end biometric payment card platform became ready for full adoption by SCMs to produce Mastercard cards. 

In May 2023, Zwipe partnered with the Kuwait International Bank to launch a biometric payment card under the Visa Infinite Black package. Through this partnership, Kuwait International Bank (KIB) became the first bank to commercially launch a biometric payment card. However, there was another company involved in the development of this product, namely Inkript, which is the Zwipe partner that took on the responsibility of actually producing the cards. 

Even though biometric technology has been around for decades, the technological breakthrough that made it possible for it to be used in payment card manufacturing was introduced recently through the development of special sensors that could be embedded into cards.