TRUSTECH 2025 is just around the corner, so ABI Research has identified five technology trends and topics that will likely dominate discussions at the event.
1. PQC—Building Upon 2025 as the Breakout Year
Quantum is expected to be a major hot topic for vendors at TRUSTECH this year—particularly for those in the smart card markets. Vendors from across the market, including chipset manufacturers such as Samsung Semiconductor, NXP, STMicroelectronics, or Infineon, and smart card vendors such as InGroupe, Paragon ID, Thames Technology, Toppan Gravity, and Watchdata, have seen 2025 serve as the breakout year for the commercial Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) market.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is confirming and finalizing the standardization of three post-quantum algorithms and another two still in the pipeline, so national governments have begun the task of planning and setting out deadlines for post-quantum migration—particularly for high-risk use cases. As smart cards form a crucial part of national, regional, and international critical infrastructure within payments, connectivity, citizen identity, and global travel, they are a crucial piece to the quantum migration puzzle.
TRUSTECH is expected to be a key forum for facilitating and advancing quantum conversations. While full quantum readiness within the smart card market remains some way off, collaboration between vendors across subsegments will be crucial to propelling the market forward, particularly throughout this education and awareness raising phase of the transition.
2. Eco-Friendly Payment Cards and the Best Path Forward
Payment card sustainability remains a focal point for many smart card vendors and supporting component vendors such as SPS and Linxens. Overall, the payment card market is one of extreme maturity and saturation. Paired with this are the indirect impacts from mobile payments, extensions to expiration timelines, and issuer strategies replacing only active cards. These conditions present a market that, at best, will achieve low single-digit growth annually.
On top of this are pricing pressures, which are beginning to return to the market post-chip shortage, further exacerbated by current levels of issuer inventory, which remain extremely high. To help combat this, ecosystem players are looking toward high-value product propositions such as sustainable material solutions to help draw out additional value from a market with stagnant growth. Rigid Polyvinyl Chloride (rPVC) has taken an early adoption lead, but the industry feeling is that a migration to a biodegradable material type is inevitable.
3. The Final Hooray for the Biometric Payment Card
The buzz around biometric payment cards continues to fade, despite heavy investment in the technology. Barriers including price and complex enrollment mechanisms have hindered adoption within the payment card market. Vendors including Infineon and STMicroelectronics have subsequently begun repositioning toward new end markets, most notably for access control and crypto-cold wallets, but with new partnerships and ecosystems to set up, progress has been slow.
Zwipe became the first corporate victim, announcing its insolvency in early 2025, demonstrating the clear challenges in accelerating commercial adoption. At TRUSTECH, we will continue to see a handful of biometric payment card demos, but there will likely be a notable shift from prior messaging. Rather than being viewed as a next-generation innovative card technology for the masses, it will act as a vendor showcase, used as an example of technological capabilities and leadership.
4. The Business Transition to eSIM and What It Will Mean for the Legacy Removable SIM Card Market
The embedded Subscriber Identity Module (eSIM) is always a key topic of conversation. Despite a lack of dedicated eSIM solutions or demos on show at TRUSTECH, it will remain a focal point. Whether looking to understand the impact on the legacy removable SIM business, the opening up of local
Chinese support for smartphone eSIM or the expected acceleration driven by SGP.32 on the Internet of Things (IoT) market, all vendors active in the SIM manufacturing ecosystem, including Samsung Semiconductor, Linxens, and TMC, will want to understand the details of early SGP.32 adoption, with pressing questions around “first mover” IoT applications, the immediacy and scale of the decrease in the removable SIM market, and the areas in which new shipments of removable SIMs will persist.
5. Despite Digitization, Physical Security Will Remain Prominent
Despite the clear trend toward digitization within the top three smart card markets (national ID, payments, and SIM), physical credentials remain a cornerstone for securing both identities and transactions. Digital-first approaches that have been implemented and scaled remain few and far between on a global level, and although the market will likely continue the transition to digital-first approaches, the primary markets of payments and government ID remain primarily physical-first in nature, with mobile acting as a companion to the physical.
Physical credentials are, therefore, not going away anytime soon, and in a market with long document life spans and increasingly sophisticated and well-resourced counterfeiters, continued evolution in physical security features to help tackle novel subversion methods is essential. Whether addressing the market from personalization and printing perspectives or supplying consumables such as materials, films, and inks, Entrust, ITW Specialty Films, KP Film, Covestro, HID Global, DASCOM, and Evolis will all be showcasing their latest and greatest from a physical security standpoint.
Let’s Connect at TRUSTECH 2025
We look forward to joining the global smart card and secure technology community at TRUSTECH 2025. Our analysts will be on-site to discuss these trends in greater depth and share insights from our latest market data and forecasts.
Whether you’re exploring post-quantum migration strategies, sustainability pathways, or next-generation authentication technologies, we’d love to connect. Reach out to schedule a meeting or stop by to speak with us during the event—let’s exchange perspectives and explore how ABI Research can help inform your next strategic move.
Join ABI Research in Paris at TRUSTECH 2025 to explore the future of payments and identification solutions with our expert analysts. Optimize your strategies today.
