Publication Date: December 2015
Near Field Communications (NFC) technology gets a lot of attention for its ability to enable contactless payments, but less known is that it also can be used to enable secure and convenient transactions in non-payments applications, such as marketing, identity, access, ticketing and gaming. The white paper, “NFC Non-Payments Use Cases,” explores NFC implementations that must secure some form of user credential (e.g., a ticket, identity badge, loyalty card) and that have real-world implementations that can illustrate the benefits of the technology in different markets.
The white paper includes:
- Discussion of marketing (loyalty, coupons and offers), identity and access (hospitality check-in, boarding passes, physical access control, automotive and healthcare), ticketing (transit and event) and gaming use cases.
- Description of the use cases including implementation considerations and challenges and examples of real-world implementations.
- Discussion of approaches for securing sensitive user credentials for non-payment applications.
- Discussion of implementation challenges that are common to all non-payments use cases.
NFC non-payment use cases can bring the technology to hundreds of millions of new users and deliver benefits to both credential holders and credential issuers. By highlighting implementations that are breaking new ground and security approaches that can protect sensitive user credentials, the white paper provides a vision for the business cases that could drive use of NFC “beyond payments.”
About the White Paper
This white paper was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Mobile Council to provide an educational resource on Bluetooth low energy, describing what it is, how it’s used, how it fits with other mobile technologies, and what security aspects should be considered for BLE-enabled applications.
Members involved in the development of this white paper included: Advanced Card Systems Ltd.; Booz Allen Hamilton; Capgemini USA Inc.; CH2M Hill; Cubic Transportation Systems, Inc.; Discover Financial Services; First Data Corporation; Fiserv; Giesecke & Devrient; Heartland Payment Systems; Identification Technology Partners; Ingenico; Intercede; IQ Devices; Morpho; NXP Semiconductors; Oberthur Technologies; Underwriters Laboratories (UL).
About the Mobile Council
The Smart Card Alliance Mobile Council was formed to raise awareness and accelerate the adoption of secure payments, loyalty, marketing, promotion/coupons/offers, peer-to-peer, identity, and access control applications using mobile and tethered wearable devices The Council focuses on activities that will help to educate the industry on implementation and security considerations and will act as a bridge between technology development/specification and the applications that can deliver business benefits to industry stakeholders.
The Council takes a broad industry view and brings together industry stakeholders in the different vertical markets that can benefit from secure mobile applications. The Council collaborates on:
- Educating the market on the technology and the value of secure mobile applications
- Developing best practices for implementation
- Working on identifying and overcoming issues inhibiting the industry