High Costs, Manufacturing Complexities and Enrollment Fragmentation Keep Biometric Payment Cards Firmly Within the Realms of Niche

Despite significant investment, biometric payment cards continue to struggle with mainstream adoption. According to a new report from global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, in a conservative scenario, biometric payment card shipments will grow from an initial base of 310,000 units in 2023 to 1.27 million by 2029, with a more aggressive outlook projecting 43 million units—still far from initial market expectations.

"The reality is that biometric payment cards are not going to become a mass-market solution anytime soon," says Phil Sealy, Research Director at ABI Research. "The high cost, combined with manufacturing and enrollment hurdles, means adoption will remain largely restricted to premium banking customers and niche applications. The industry must recalibrate its expectations and rethink forward-looking strategies.”

There are three primary barriers preventing mass adoption:

• Manufacturing Complexities: High production costs and low yield rates make large-scale deployment challenging.
• Pricing Limitations: Biometric cards currently cost US$15 to US$20 per unit, nearly 10 times the price of a standard contactless card.
• Enrollment Challenges: The lack of a standardized, scalable enrollment process continues to slow down adoption.

Given these limitations, vendors such as IDEMIA, Thales, and IDEX Biometrics are looking toward new opportunities, most notably within the access control and crypto cold wallet markets, where security concerns justify the added cost of biometric authentication. ABI Research predicts that by 2027-2029, these alternative markets will contribute significantly to overall biometric card adoption.

"Many ecosystem players have recognized that the payments market is unlikely to deliver the scale they initially envisioned," adds Sealy. "Despite the shift toward access control and crypto wallets, where biometric security can provide real value, it remains an extremely challenging market. This is echoed by the recent news that one of the market pioneers, Zwipe has filed for bankruptcy. Access control and crypto wallet ecosystems and partnerships must be developed and opened quickly. Without any tangible market success over the next 12 to 24 months, further consolidation and/or pulling investment away should be considered a more feasible likelihood."

These findings are from ABI Research’s Innovative Payment Card Technologies Market Data Overview 1H 2025 report. This report is part of the company’s Digital Payment Technologies research service, which provides in-depth research, data, and strategic insights into the evolving payment card industry.