Amadeus buying IPS for biometric tech

Amadeus announced its intention to acquire IDEMIA Public Security (IPS), a biometrics and identity services provider headquartered in France. IPS has a global footprint and a diversified customer base across public and private sectors, and the €1.2 billion acquisition, on closing will further strengthen Amadeus’ biometric and identity capabilities, leveraging IPS’ market-leading technology, end-to-end platform, and strong global blue-chip-client base. It will follow Amadeus’ 2024 acquisition of Vision-Box. The intended acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, with closing expected mid-2027. There is an agreed earn‑out structure supporting long‑term value alignment between both parties which could take total consideration up to €1.35 billion. With trusted digital identity becoming a foundational layer across the end-to-end travel journey, and as biometric adoption quickly accelerates across the travel industry, this acquisition will accelerate Amadeus’ growth in airports and border verticals, enhancing its position in this space, underlining the company’s deliberate strategy to bring biometric identity capabilities into its core travel platform. By integrating biometric capabilities with airline, airport, border systems, and hotels, Amadeus can support the next phase of automation, delivering more seamless, automated, and AI-enabled travel journeys while ensuring a secure identity layer exists across the entire journey. A combined Amadeus-IPS offering will also drive the further digitalization of core travel processes, delivering faster, more secure inter-connectivity between a range of stakeholders. Biometrics allows identity to be verified instantly, enabling faster processing, better security, and more efficient operations. At the same time, this acquisition will increase Amadeus’ ability to connect touch points across the traveler journey, positioning it in line with its ambition to be an orchestrator of the travel ecosystem, enabling Amadeus to support a more integrated passenger journey from booking, through airport processing, and boarding. “This demonstrates further our long‑term commitment to biometrics as part of our broader platform strategy. Alongside AI, biometrics is one of the most transformative technologies for delivering fast, convenient, and secure end‑to‑end traveler journeys. This will enable us to deliver our services across more traveler touch points, in turn reducing friction, and improving the traveler experience, while supporting our ambition to further expand biometric capabilities, extending traveler ID throughout the journey,” said Luis Maroto, President and CEO, Amadeus. “In a fast‑evolving AI‑world the bridging of physical and digital identity will be critical for seamless travel. By combining Amadeus and IPS capabilities we will be able to create more joined‑up travel journeys in the future, better connecting the travel ecosystem and linking the traveler to the different steps of the journey,” said Decius Valmorbida, President, Travel, Amadeus. IPS employs around 3,300 people worldwide and serves more than 600 public and private sector customers. Beyond passenger processing, IPS capabilities also extend secure identity into adjacent, complementary, and regulated environments such as access control and government grade biometric identification and data solutions, where trusted identity is critical. This will deepen Amadeus’ capabilities in secure identity and naturally extend the breadth and reach of Amadeus’ offering. For Editorial Inquiries Contact: Editor Matt Driskill at [email protected] For Advertising Inquiries Contact: Head of Sales Sally Passey at [email protected]