Proxama & Aconite demo remote NFC management solution

Date: 30 Oct 2008

Aconite, a provider of smart product management solutions, and technology innovations company Proxama, are to showcase at Cartes and Identification 2008 a new service that allows the remote management of NFC phone applications. This capability will be vital to the roll-out of near field communication (NFC) applications on mobile phones – from loyalty, to payments, ticketing and access control. Whether a customer wants to cancel the payment application because their phone has been lost or stolen, or they need to add a ticketing application or an access control facility for a new job, the ability to control NFC applications in the field will be critical to both consumers and service-providers.

Dr Neil Garner, CEO of technology innovations company Proxama, says: “The ability to have more than one application on the phone is part of the promise and appeal of NFC. This level of service requires consumers and service-providers to feel confident about updating applications in the field in a way that is both secure and simple. If this issue is not tackled up front it could slow the development of widespread and successful NFC services.”

Proxama and Aconite will illustrate their NFC applications management service with a demonstration of a pre-paid mobile payment application. The demo uses a Java wallet application, developed by Proxama, that sits on a MasterCard M/Chip PayPass pre-paid ‘card’ on the phone’s secure chip. The prepaid ‘card’ is topped up by Aconite’s Prepaid Value Manager solution which manages authorisation and top-ups for contactless prepaid applications. The co-operation between the two organisations uniquely links the software on the phone with the back-end processes of the application issuer. This provides an important corner-stone in mobile applications life-cycle management.
 
David Harbige, Head of Technology at Aconite, says: “The use of a mobile phone as a payment platform has significant benefits over the traditional plastic card, especially due to the ‘always available’ network connectivity and a personal and private user interface.  As European issuers roll out EMV for card-based contactless payments, this development offers them the opportunity to trial NFC mobile payments in a way that leverages these benefits, resulting in a mobile payment platform that is more than just another form factor.”