Recently, many authors proposed different remote user authentication schemes based on fingerprint recognition using smart cards. But no one of the mechanism succeeds to satisfy all the confidence requirements. In this article, first time as a novel step, we are introducing face authentication for accessing smart cards in addition to the fingerprint mechanism, i.e., first user will be authenticated by verification of face and fingerprint biometrics simultaneously. Then, the transactions will be accessible after verification of mutual authentication. For improving security, we have introduced face and fingerprint biometrics user authentication for accessing smart cards. Our scheme is against to security attacks like denial of service, forgery attack, server spoofing attack, and so on. © 2021, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.