The European Payments Council (EPC) has published a white paper which examines the ways in which NFC technology could be used to deliver compatible mobile phone-based payments services across the 32 countries of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).

As well as the way in which near field communication technology can be used to deliver mobile versions of existing card-based payments services, the White Paper on Mobile Payments also highlights the potential of NFC to enable consumers to use the secure element in their NFC phone to directly transfer funds from their bank account to a merchant or other supplier — potentially reducing the cost to merchants of handling electronic payments.

"Many consumers are already using mobile phones for services beyond the traditional voice calls and short messaging services due to the introduction of packaged offers, including internet access provided by the mobile network operators," says the European Payments Council. "As a result, consumer expectations with regard to mobile phone functionality have increased dramatically, with many users eager to embrace new service solutions based on this delivery platform, such as payments. The availability of practical SEPA mobile payments, either account or card-based, would provide a realistic alternative to cash and cheques."

"At the same time, merchants demand that new technology translates into cost savings, increased business volume and reduced exposure to security threats such as cash thefts or illicit payments, as well as enhanced marketing opportunities and brand recognition," it continues. "Mobile phone initiated payments, in particular those using the contactless approach, are very well positioned to generate these benefits for merchants and other stakeholders who are directly providing services to consumers."

The European Payments Council is working with a number of organisations, include mobile network operators' association the GSMA, to set standards and business roles for mobile payments in Euro countries. “The aim is to develop proposals that support collaboration and standardisation and which form the basis for interoperability," says Gerard Hartsink, the EPC's chairman. "Our intention is to establish a service framework sufficient to reach potentially all payers and payees in the European Economic Area and to create a trusted and secure environment for the multiple stakeholders active in the field.”

The EPC's mobile payments initiative is headed by DnB Nor's Dag-Inge Flatraaker, who explains that “the EPC White Paper on Mobile Payments responds to changing customer requirements in the payments market and demonstrates how mobile payments can increase efficiency, effectiveness and convenience. This paper creates awareness on how to best combine the benefits of state-of-the art SEPA payment instruments for credit transfers, direct debits and card payments handled through one of the most popular and versatile devices introduced in the past two decades — the mobile phone.”

Readers can download the full white paper in pdf format free of charge from the European Payments Council's website.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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WORKING TOGETHER: GlobalPlatform will lead the joint effort to develop a certification process

Card payments standards body EMVCo and telecoms association the GSM Association have agreed to work with GlobalPlatform to define a common certification process that will enable mobile network operators and the payments industry to develop cross-industry certification schemes for NFC services.

"When fully developed and operational, these schemes will work together to ensure that any certified payment application will work with any certified UICC [SIM] platform, reducing the incidence of certification failures when new application/platform combinations are subsequently added for testing," say the associations. "The result will be significantly reduced testing and development costs and a faster time to market. Additionally, no further certifications will be necessary when loading applications with less stringent security requirements onto new UICC platforms."

GlobalPlatform has been chosen to lead the initiative due to its cross-industry technical expertise. "We believe that the creation of the model will increase overall market confidence," says Gil Bernabeu, GlobalPlatform's technical director. "Although industry bodies such as MNOs and payment organisations will remain responsible for certifying technology compliance, GlobalPlatform hopes that adherence to the model and relevant security configurations will become commonplace."

The agreement has been welcomed by a number of trade associations and standards bodies.

"This initiative fully supports the objectives of the EPC as regards the creation of a standardised and interoperable environment for mobile payments," says Dag-Inge Flatraaker, chair of the European Payments Council's M-Channel Group. "The composite certification will improve the timeliness of the approval process and ease related procedures for banks and payments service suppliers. This initiative allows the banks to manage and control the security of their applications when operating in the mobile payments environment."

"Dissociating the certification of the platform from the application is a great initiative to not only accelerate the development and deployment of applications, especially in multi-issuer environments, but also avoid technology fragmentation," added Michel Canitrot, chairman of the board for the SIMalliance. "It is a guarantee for the issuer that, whatever the platform, the application will be deployed seamlessly and securely. NFC is typically a use case where this guarantee is essential for mass market deployment."

"A common type approval approach for contactless mobile payment UICCs will avoid redundancy and conflicting efforts between different parties with approval authorities and interests," explains Brian Byrne, chairman of the EMVCo board of managers. "We see this as a natural extension of EMVCo's commitment to provide a globally interoperable acceptance environment for secure payments. Our participation is aimed at ensuring the resulting type approval process is not only cost-effective and efficient, but that it is secure and flexible enough to meet the requirements of the payment and telecommunications industries."

"Developing a UICC certification model for NFC services that is cost effective and results in a short time to market will be critical for the commercial rollout of mobile NFC services worldwide", concluded Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer of the GSMA.

GlobalPlatform has also working on a compliance programme for NFC SIMs. Test suites, which can be used to develop testing tools that ensure NFC SIMs meet GlobalPlatform standards, are being released to GlobalPlatform members now.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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GlobalPlatform has set up a Transportation Task Force with the aim of actively contributing to the evolution of smart ticketing solutions. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a standard travel media that will offer multi transportation network ticketing solutions which provide a variety of additional services to passengers, including everything from bike rental to banking services.

The task force is being led by Michel Barjansky, Innovation Manager at the Engineering Department of French transportation organisation RATP (Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP).

The Transportation Task Force will work with GlobalPlatform's existing Card, Device and Systems committees to modify and advance its existing specifications in order to address specific requirements highlighted by the transportation industry. In particular, it will work closely with GlobalPlatform’s Mobile Task Force which has established links with StoLPaN, ETSI, the GSM Association, European Payments Council, Association Européenne Payez Mobile, Ulysse and the Mobey Forum.

The task force will begin by publishing a white paper that will explain how GlobalPlatform specifications enable the usage of a third party media, such as a mobile phone, for transactions, for enhancing mobility by facilitating the co-existence of different local transport applications on the same media and allowing transport operators to enrich services by offering new applications throughout the lifecycle of the solution.

“The transportation industry has identified the value smart card technology can bring to their networks such as efficient e-ticketing distribution," says Barjansky. "As a secure multi-application smart card specification provider representing payment systems, the telecoms community and transport operators, we believe it is important that GlobalPlatform contributes to this evolving landscape from an independent, cross-industry perspective. By participating now, GlobalPlatform can support the convergence of the transportation market with other sectors to create exciting and convenient services to passengers.”

“GlobalPlatform has an established, secure and flexible smart card infrastructure that transcends markets and supports multi-application, multi-actor and multi-business model implementations," added Gil Bernabeu, GlobalPlatform’s Technical Director and Technical Advisor for the Standardization and Technology Department at Gemalto. "This means that a transport operator deploying an e-ticketing solution today can benefit from our experience and knowledge by using GlobalPlatform’s latest and most sophisticated technology, which will save significant time to market as well as research and development costs.”

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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MEMORANDUM: The EPC and GlobalPlatform have agreed to coordinate and align their work on NFC

The European Payments Council (EPC), the decision-making body of the European payments industry, and GlobalPlatform, the international specification body for smart card infrastructure, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that will see the two organisations coordinate their work on NFC with the aim of "promoting the availability of interoperable and neutral technology that will support a flexible and sustainable mobile payments marketplace."

"The formal liaison relationship between the EPC and GlobalPlatform will ensure that the mobile contactless technical specifications and use cases of each organisation are compatible and adhere to predefined common requirements for mobile payments," the two groups explain.

The first priority under the MoU will be to verify compliance between GlobalPlatform's technology and the EPC's existing use cases. Focus will also be placed on the capabilities of the GlobalPlatform Messaging Specification to standardise communication between the different players — such as banks, trusted service managers and mobile network operators — in the mobile proximity payments ecosystem. A second objective is to further analyse a possible cooperation on compliance and certification of the secure element that hosts mobile payment applications.

Earlier this month GlobalPlatform released a white paper outlining its vision for the implementation of NFC systems. EPC, meanwhile, has been working on a roadmap for mobile payments services such as SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) compliant contactless card proximity payments and remote payments.

"We clearly see the importance of working together with GlobalPlatform in the contactless domain in order to facilitate the implementation of our roadmap, foster interoperability and contribute to a cohesive ecosystem that leverages the SEPA infrastructure implemented by the European banking industry," says Dag-Inge Flatraaker, chairman of the EPC M-Channel Group.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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ENGAGING: Stakeholders are invited to take part in EMVCo's work on a technical infrastructure for mobile payments

EMVCo, the standards body responsible for developing and maintaining the globally recognised EMV payment specifications, is inviting mobile operators, chip and handset manufacturers and application providers to have a voice in its work to standardise a technical infrastructure for mobile payments.

The organisation, jointly owned by MasterCard, Visa, American Express and JCB, says it has already begun working collaboratively with the GSMA, the NFC Forum and GlobalPlatform to define and create an interoperable mobile payments standard. Now it is to host an EMV User Meeting at the end of June in a bid to bring together individual users of the EMV standard — including those involved in developing and implementing mobile payments technology — and senior EMVCo representatives.

Meeting attendees will receive an overview of EMVCo's mobile payments standardisation work to date and will learn what steps the organisation is taking to help mobile service providers and vendors accommodate payment system requirements when incorporating NFC payment applications into handsets.

Delegates will be encouraged to share feedback on market requirements, which will be used to shape EMVCo's future mobile payments standardisation strategy and identify both short and long term technical work priorities. The meeting will combine presentations and roundtable discussions to ensure that the event is both educational and interactive.

Dr Nav Bains, senior director of the GSMA's Pay-Buy-Mobile NFC project has been confirmed as one of two keynote speakers at the meeting. His presentation will discuss the importance of cross-industry collaboration to enable and grow mobile payments infrastructure.

The second keynote presentation will be delivered by Claude Brun, vice chair of the European Payments Council, and will address the implementation of the SEPA payments initiative for payment cards based on EMV technology.

"EMVCo has a strong history of engaging with stakeholders in its standards development work," says Tad Fordyce, chairman of the EMVCo executive committee. "This meeting, where interested parties, such as mobile service providers and vendor organisations, can interact in person with EMVCo representatives is intended to build on that to ensure that future work undertaken towards mobile payments standardisation reflects the needs of the global mobile payments community."

"In line with EMVCo's role as a technical standards body, the EMV User Meeting is intended as a forum on technical issues," the organisation explains. "Mobile payment business models, marketing and sales strategies will not feature on the agenda."

The meeting will take place at the Sheraton Arabellapark in Munich, Germany on Tuesday 30 June and Wednesday 1 July 2009. Those wishing to attend can book online at the EMVCo website. You will need to have a subscription to EMVCo, which costs US$750 a year, and pay the meeting delegate rate of US$249, if booked by 31 May, or US$495 after that date.

This article was first published at www.NearFieldCommunicationsWorld.com.

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