It'a contactless world!

NXP and Gemalto sign licensing agreement for adding Mifare to UICC

Posted by admin on November 25, 2010 Comments Off

Today, Gemalto announced that Gemalto and NXP signed a licensing agreement for adding Mifare to Gemalto’s SIM products.

Gemalto is clearly the global market leader in providing banking smart cards. What else? Gemalto also has an OTA platform for mobile network operators. Gemalto is a member of Open Handset Alliance -the organization behind Android, which officialy announced the NFC support very short time ago. They even acquired the Mifare4Mobile team from NXP two years ago. Well, putting them all together, we can say that they have “the whole package” for an NFC ecosystem.

Without a doubt, transport ticketing is the killer application for NFC and Mifare is the strongest player for hosting the transport ticketing applications. All the mifare classic hacks couldn’t change this. NXP announced that 4 byte UIDs reached the end and they will start non-unique 4 byte UIDs or 7 byte UIDs for Mifare Classic.

So adding a mifare emulation applet on top of Gemalto’s current product range means only one thing; mifare based ticketing systems have a clear path for an NFC project. Gemalto can provide an end-to-end solution for transport operators, regulatory authorities, or even to banks for running a mifare based application via mobile phones.

Again; the only missing part is still the lack of handsets with NFC support!

Android jumps on the NFC bandwagon

Posted by admin on November 16, 2010 Comments Off

As many of the authorities agree, Android is the most promising mobile platform. It is now the second after Symbian (bypassing iOS) and it is on the rise to the top. NFC support for Android was already under development and it was rumoured that the latest Android version 2.3 Gingerbread will officially support NFC. This was confirmed at the Web 2.0 Summit during the discussion session with Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google with Tim O’Reilly and John Batelle.

He even demonstrated an NFC tag reading application that opened the location of the tag on Google Map. The full session can be watched on Youtube here.

After Nokia and Apple’s patents and applications on NFC, now Android has committed in to the NFC space. In general, banks and telco operators have already had many pilot programs and now the picture is almost complete with one little actor missing: the device manufacturers! Unfortunately there are too little number of handsets with NFC support.

Anyway, let’s look at the bright side. Now that all major mobile platforms officially support NFC, application developers can have a wider range of users. Mobile application markets have already solved the distribution problems, now the it is time for the -hopefully- gold rush!

Here are an idea of an NFC project other than obvious payment and ticketing applications:

Imagine check ins with Foursquare over the NFC tags attached to the cashier desks of the venues with NFC supported handsets. These tags (not necessarily just tags) can offer discounts based on the check ins for a specific time frame. Or even based on a pattern like buying gas from a certain network and then buying food from a certain supermarket chain. It can even trigger a payment application residing next to the coupon application.

The only question remains here is when?

Mobile contactless payment white paper from EPC and GSMA

Posted by admin on October 26, 2010 Comments Off

With the release of Mobile Contactless Payments Service Management Roles Requirements and Specifications white paper prepared by EPC and GSMA, I think I have now the responses of my post on practical barriers of NFC.

EPC is the decision making and coordinating body of banks regarding payment for EU region. The main reason of EPC’s existence is to develop and maintain the SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) and I believe they made a good job so far. And GSMA represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry in 219 countries with nearly 800 mobile operators and 200 more companies within the ecosystem of mobile networks.

So, the co-operation of these two organizations on mobile contactless payments definitely filled a gap in the NFC related mobile contactless payments space. Now banks and mobile network operators have a reference document defining the commercial relations, technical roles, operational workflows and most importantly a single user experience approach for the customer. Although I am still not sure how much binding will this document be for the banks and mobile network operators but it will definitely help new projects.

The main highlights of the document are;

Setting the definitions of all context
Defining clear explanations of the roles
Defining the lifecycle management of the mobile contactless payment application
Examples of various scenarios of mobile contactless payment implementations between banks, TSMs and mobile network operators.

The below figure is an extract from the document which I believe is the heart of the document defining the lifecycle starting from the application to termination of the service.

I think anyone interested in the subject must read the paper which can be download from here.

A mind opening article on NFC

Posted by admin on October 18, 2010 Comments Off

I bumped into this post on Contactless Payments group on Linkedin, which is about a great article on NFC Should Stand For “Needs Further Clarification” by Nick Holland from Yankee Group. I find the article very mind opening, especially for the banking/card payment world planning pilots/projects on NFC.

The adage “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” is an apt description of current payment industry thinking. What is the most obvious use of contactless technology? Payment card. What does everyone want their phone to be? Payment card. What is your favorite color? Payment card.

Please read the full article on StorefrontBacktalk. Nick very well puts the ugly truth that NFC does not only mean processing a contactless payment transaction from the handset. A clear value proposition -other than the payment itself- must be defined for the contactless environment for an NFC payment application over the handset to be successful.

Embedded contactless reader for PCs from Sony and HID

Posted by admin on October 12, 2010 No comments

Sony announced a very good news today for the contactless world. Sony and HID Global forms an alliance to create an embedded contactless reader for PCs. Sony, being one of the pioneers in the contactless technology, will be incorporating with HID, which acquired Omnikey -one of the best PC connected reader manufacturers, for building an embedded contactless reader.

Sony is already an influencer of contactless technology; they own their own contactless chip -Felica- and they are playing a huge role on the NFC area. Needless to say, Sony has huge opportunities on their home entertainment products from Play Station 3 to wide screen TVs and Vaio laptop line up for integrating with NFC based chips.

On the other hand, HID has a wide range of products in identity and security markets. I personally admire the PC connected Omnikey readers a lot, very robust and has a great support in terms of drivers and software.

I believe a contactless reader may eventually become a standard peripheral device for PCs, if this attempt is successfully completed. I can imagine how wide range of applications can be developed once the computers have embedded contactless readers. People can top up or check their balances/transaction history of transportation cards at home, (which is already being done in far east right now) process credit card transactions for shopping online or buy airtime for their NFC handsets. I had personally seen an embedded Felica reader in action on a Sony guy I had a meeting with, so this is not a long run. It just needs the right actors to be involved in the picture.

All contactless readers support both ISO 1443 type A and B, so these readers will support all current contactless chips that are available like Mifare, Calypso, Legic, etc. Of course that will bring a lot of political discussion over software and ownership of the reader IC, but for now let’s cross fingers for Sony and HID!

Fast track at the airport : TAV Passport Card

Posted by admin on October 5, 2010 No comments

Passing through airport gates and check in procedures always require a very long time to be spent in the airports. Thanks to contactless devices, that may be history.

Contactless ecosystem and airport check in services has much to offer together. TAV Passport card is no exception in that sense. TAV is the operator of biggest 3 airports in Turkey -and a few more in neighboring countries. They are doing excellent job in running these airports, yet they developed a contactless card for frequent flyers.

TAV Card is a contactless card -mifare 1k- offering:

a special gate for fast entrance to airport
business check in -regardless from your ticket type
free parking at the airport parking area for 30 days/year
airport transfers
fast passport control at a special gate for TAV card holders
discount rates at duty free
discount rates at the coffee shops at the airport

It’s a very well designed product for frequent flyers which need speed and convenience on the time they spend at the airport. Contactless devices provide these requirements, so it’s the correct choice to use a contactless card.

Castle POS terminals were used and credits go to Verisoft for developing the whole system.

Guitar with a contactless reader

Posted by admin on September 13, 2010 No comments

One thing I really love -other than contactless systems, of course- is the music. Although not being able to play as much as I did in the past, I’ve been playing guitar for years. When I bumped into the article of Mobile Money Exchange, I was really excited: The guitar of the street band has a contactless reader attached to the headstock and it accepts contactless cards. What an innovative idea!

When you see a street band in a metro or on the street, the main motivation of giving a few bucks is to support the musicians. But these guys have even better idea, they are supporting some charity and a contactless readers ensures this, simply because there’s no cash included! When you wave your Barclays contactless card against the headstock of the guitar, you simply donate a fixed amount of money to a charity. (Help a London Child, in this case for 5 pounds)

I love the idea and I am now hoping this idea to be implemented by transport operators, banks, loyalty system providers who are actively using contactless cards.

Paypal moves into contactless space

Posted by admin on August 23, 2010 No comments

Paypal is definitely the most important online payment system provider in the online world. Yet, it seems they are quite enthusiastic about the real world. And of course, the leading online payment service provider goes for the coolest method; over the contactless interface! Near Field Communications World refers to the interview with the Paypal President Scott Thompson on The Wall Street Journal.

Transactions are processed by Bling Nation, so merchants need to obtain a BlingBox to accept Paypal contactless stickers. Paypal customers must get the contactless sticker from a Bling merchant prior to making a transaction. The sticker is supposed to be attached to the back of the handset.

The big picture suggests that Paypal customers will be able to access their accounts in real merchant locations via their contactless stickers attached to their phones. According to Bling Nation, sticker is compliant with NFC, so it will be available to customers without a stick when the secure element dilemma is resolved and ordinary people have NFC enabled phones.

There are no technical details on the payment application itself, so I assume it is secure enough to hit the streets. I think the below issues are very critical and must be addressed -if not already done so:

- The authenticity check of the card and the POS terminal
- The verification of the card holder
- Interoperability with the existing POS network with contactless readers

Anyway, it’s an interesting move for the contactless world from a strong player!

First MicroSD based contactless payment launch in Europe

Posted by admin on August 12, 2010 No comments

Visa Europe and Akbank -one of the big fives in Turkey- announced the first MicroSD based contactless payment application in Turkey. Akbank, Visa Europe and DeviceFidelity attended the press conference.

As I already mentioned in a previous post, DeviceFidelity’s MicroSD product is a solid solution, especially for Turkey where contactless reader penetration is almost like %2 of total POS terminals -around 32.000 contactless readers are already installed. The projected target figure is %5 of total number 1.800.000 terminals. More than 2.200.000 Visa&MasterCard contactless credit cards have been issued in Turkey by 10 different banks. Contactless usage is on constant increase but not as much as anticipated.

I was unofficially informed that only Blackberry is supported for the time being, but I was unable to confirm it.

It’s a great success for Akbank to commercially launch a handset based payment application. Now I am waiting for the announcement of the availability of the application process as an Akbank customer, which will be by the end of this year!

NFC based check in process work flow

Posted by admin on August 11, 2010 No comments

I have been on my summer vacation with my family and I had some thoughts on a contactless based check in service while waiting at the check in desk. I developed a process in my mind and after returning back, I bumped into a great article NFC – the future of the check-in process on NFC News. It is a very innovative idea to speed up the check in process and quite convenient from the customer perspective.

The bluetooth enabled contactless sticker is the key element as well as the contactless readers to be installed in the airport gates.