News from the Wire

GlobalPlatform issues paper on transportation ticketing chip payments

Tuesday, April 22, 2014 — 12:37:50 (EDT)

Foster City, Calif., April 22, 2014 – GlobalPlatform, the organization which standardizes the management of applications on secure chip technology, has published a free to download white paper which specifies how stakeholders can work within the existing transportation network infrastructure to offer innovative ticketing payment solutions using a contactless card or near field communication (NFC) enabled handset.

The white paper, entitled: ‘On-Chip Services: Seamlessly Performing Payment Transactions within the Existing Transportation Ticketing Infrastructure’ will be of interest to payment schemes, public transport operators and application developers. The document examines the current transportation network infrastructure and explains how a contactless card or secure element (SE) can generate a ticketing transaction without any updates being made to the existing network infrastructure using a new concept called ‘on-card transaction’.

An on-card transaction can be carried out on either a contactless card or an NFC-enabled mobile device when the device is online or offline. To undertake an on-card transaction, a payment application and a transit application are both downloaded and hosted on the same contactless card or SE – a tamper-resistant platform capable of securely hosting applications and their confidential and cryptographic data – within a mobile device. This allows direct communication between the two applications enabling a payment transaction to be undertaken within the secure environment of the SE.

“The increased global adoption of contactless payment cards and NFC-enabled mobile devices provides an opportunity for the transit sector to offer simplified and streamlined access to transit networks via this payment method,” explains Stephanie El Rhomri, Chair of GlobalPlatform’s Transportation Sub-Task Force and NFC & Payment Vendors Business Line Manager at FIME. “For any solution to gain mass market traction, however, it must work within the existing infrastructure to avoid costly updates.”

An on-card transaction enables a ticketing payment to be initiated by either the payment or transit application to accommodate any business model. The paper therefore examines how GlobalPlatform’s existing specifications can be leveraged to implement all on-card transactions and supporting services. The paper concludes by listing the potential additional standardization efforts that GlobalPlatform could support to encourage market adoption.

Gil Bernabeu, Technical Director of GlobalPlatform, comments: “This solution allows transit and payment applications to interact inside a SE, while limiting the impact on the public transport operators legacy infrastructure. It enables passengers to access a transit network with no change to gates, ticket validators or the fare collection system. GlobalPlatform play a collaborative role within the marketplace and its specifications can support applications residing on the same platform but from different markets. Service providers, therefore, don’t need to adapt their business model in terms of security for different audiences and environments. As in the case of on-card transactions, this saves money and time to market.”

On-card transaction not only has the potential to streamline the transaction time for transportation users, but can offer value to other markets such as payment and loyalty, where two applications benefit from direct interaction and authentication.

To read the white paper, visit the GlobalPlatform website. Industry feedback is encouraged regarding GlobalPlatform’s on-card transaction efforts. To contribute to the discussion, please email secretariat@globalplatform.org .

About GlobalPlatform

GlobalPlatform is a cross industry, not-for-profit association which identifies, develops and publishes specifications which facilitate the secure and interoperable deployment and management of multiple embedded applications on secure chip technology. Its proven technical specifications are regarded as the international industry standard for building a trusted end-to-end solution which serves multiple actors and supports several business models.

The freely available specifications provide the foundation for market convergence and innovative new cross-sector partnerships. The technology has been adopted globally across finance, mobile/telecom, government, healthcare, retail and transit sectors. GlobalPlatform also supports an open compliance program ecosystem to ensure the long-term interoperability of secure chip technology.

As a member-driven association with cross-market representation from all world continents, GlobalPlatform membership is open to any organization operating within this landscape. Its 120+ members contribute to technical committees and market-led task forces. www.globalplatform.org .

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Source: Company press release.