News from the Wire

NFC Forum forms partnerships with three industry consortia

Wednesday, September 14, 2016 — 12:30:53 (EDT)

Wakefield, Mass., Sept. 14, 2016 – The NFC Forum announced today the signing of liaison agreements with the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC), the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, and the Smart Ticketing Alliance. The goal of the alliances is to collaborate on joint projects to advance the adoption and usability of Near Field Communication (NFC) in key markets and technology sectors, including automotive, public transportation, and digital identity.

All of the collaborations are focused on educating the market, unleashing innovation, and removing barriers to interoperability. For consumers, they will help ensure that NFC's benefits of greater ease, simplicity and enhanced security will be available in more places and more ways -- when driving in their cars, taking public transport, or seeking to engage in secure online activity.

"These alliances confirm that, day by day, NFC is touching more parts of our lives -- from our daily commute to the way we protect our digital identities online," said Paula Hunter, NFC Forum executive director. "By working closely with the CCC, the FIDO Alliance, and the Smart Ticketing Alliance, the NFC Forum is taking a leadership role in accelerating the availability of NFC solutions to consumers throughout the world."

Each agreement executed by the NFC Forum is tailored to the interests of the participating organizations and their members:

• Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) is dedicated to cross-industry collaboration in developing MirrorLink® global standards and solutions for smartphone and in-vehicle connectivity. The organization's 90 members represent 70 percent of the world's auto market, 70 percent of the global smartphone market, and a who's who of aftermarket consumer electronics vendors. The CCC and NFC Forum's liaison agreement provides for joint cooperation to develop new, innovative smartphone and in-vehicle connectivity solutions using NFC by sharing relevant automotive use cases and the free exchange of and reference to each other's specifications.

• FIDO Alliance provides open standards and certifications for an emerging interoperable ecosystem of personal devices and online services. This ecosystem of easy-to-use strong authentication capabilities enables service providers to reduce their reliance on passwords and deploy authentication solutions that provide a superior, simpler, and more trustworthy user experience. The liaison agreement between the FIDO Alliance and the NFC Forum provides for the exchange of technical requirements, sharing of use cases, and the joint evaluation of NFC Forum specifications to advance the interoperability of NFC Forum and FIDO technical standards, including FIDO-enabled NFC devices.

• Smart Ticketing Alliance is a not-for-profit organization, registered in Belgium, for the cooperative and coordinated approach to establishing ticketing interoperability for the global Public Transport sector. This liaison agreement with the NFC Forum marks the next step in an expanding relationship between the two organizations featured in the March 2016 joint statement, along with GSMA, to advance the interoperability between NFC mobile devices' contactless interface and globally relevant Public Transport readers and media. This new agreement deepens the collaboration on the use and certification of NFC devices in the global Public Transport sector.

About the NFC Forum The NFC Forum's (www.nfc-forum.org) mission is to advance the use of Near Field Communication technology by developing specifications, ensuring interoperability among devices and services, and educating the market about NFC technology. The Forum's global member companies are currently developing specifications for a modular NFC device architecture, and protocols for interoperable data exchange and device-independent service delivery, device discovery, and device capability. The NFC Forum's Sponsor members include Apple Inc., Broadcom Corporation, Dai Nippon Printing Co. Ltd., Google, Inc., Intel, MasterCard Worldwide, NEC, Nokia, NXP Semiconductors, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Corporation, STMicroelectronics, and Visa Inc.

STATEMENTS FROM PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS

"As the NFC Forum is the premier industry association dedicated to advancing NFC technology, we at CCC are extremely excited to join forces to collaborate on new and innovative ways to help make using the smartphone with the automobile simply better," said Alan Ewing, Car Connectivity Consortium president. "We look forward to many meaningful and fruitful conversations to continue expanding the usefulness of the connected car."

"The FIDO Alliance makes it a priority to work closely with industry associations to drive the use of FIDO standards and the technologies they support, such as NFC," said Brett McDowell, executive director of the FIDO Alliance. "We are looking forward to working with the NFC Forum to promote the enablement of FIDO authentication in NFC devices globally."

"The Smart Ticketing Alliance was founded to drive global ticketing interoperability across the Public Transport industry," said John Verity, Chairman of the Smart Ticketing Alliance. "This liaison with the NFC Forum will accelerate our efforts, providing Public Transport Operators with a way to achieve compatibility between their own readers, such as ticket machines, validators, and gates, and the millions of NFC-enabled consumer devices in the marketplace."

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Source: Company press release.