They recognize it straight away. Their idea was, initially, not designed to help disabled people. European leader in the manufacture of bank cards, the French company Idemia has developed a card equipped with a “biometric security” system. More concretely: a fingerprint reader which allows you to activate a payment without having to enter your secret code. “It’s a product that we first launched for the general public, without thinking that it could make the lives of blind people easier. It’s sometimes a real problem for them to compose their code,” explains Vincent Mouret, vice-president of product and marketing at the French company.
With this solution, the French company allows users to pay without a code, simply by placing their thumb on the card, even beyond the limit of 50 euros imposed by contactless. A system that prevents certain people with bad intentions from looking over their shoulders for the code.
To enter their code, visually impaired people can use the raised marker affixed to the number 5. Practical, certainly, but less and less common. The reason ? More and more payment terminals are equipped with “pin on glass”. “These are featureless touch screens. For people who suffer from significant vision problems, it’s really complicated,” assures Idemia’s product manager.
Nathan can attest to this. Aged 16, the visually impaired teenager has great difficulty finding his way when confronted with bright screens. “When you have the mark on 5, it’s quite easy. But when there isn’t one, it’s really a hassle. Technological progress is good, but we have to think of everyone,” regrets the teenager. “The advantage of biometric security is that even if the card is stolen, no one else will be able to use it to pay contactlessly,” assures Idemia. As for the additional cost, it should be “around one euro per month more” for the user.
The problem ? ” Withdraw money “
This innovation has the advantage of being very simple for all older people who are not always equipped with the payment solutions already offered by certain smartphones. Asked about the interest of this new biometric card, Nathan said “why not”. “The main problem for the visually impaired is withdrawing money. When you don’t see anything on the screen, you’re lost. This is what should be improved. » According to the Minister of Health, around 207,000 French are blind or “profoundly visually impaired”. The number of “average visually impaired” is estimated at nearly a million.
Beyond this “made in Idemia” innovation, the French company which has exceeded two billion euros in turnover has also joined forces with MasterCard to offer a “touch card”. This payment card has the particularity of having notches allowing them to be easily identified in a wallet. “We worked with associations of blind people so that they could tell us how to differentiate them by touch.” Generally, people with visual impairments use the relief of the chip to know which way to insert it. But they have no way of differentiating the cards when they have several.
This project carried out with MasterCard has already grown. In 2022, 60 of the 600 million cards printed by Idemia worldwide were equipped with these practical notches.