Contactless Payment On Display In NYC Today

By DAVID SIMS

TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist

ViVOtech, a vendor of contactless payment products, is announcing a demonstration today at the National Retail Federation Show at the Javits Center in New York City.

They’re promising a live demonstration of their end-to-end NFC payment product, designed to enable secure transactions with mobile devices. It will include four NFC-enabled mobile phones pre-loaded with ViVOwallet software, as well as various credit cards making contactless transactions at ViVOpay readers attached to point of sale systems located throughout the booth.

Attendees viewing the phones will be able to see what a "soft card" image looks like in the phone's display window after being delivered through an over-the-air provisioning infrastructure.

The NFC-enabled phones will regularly download various types of content from "smart posters" with RFID tags embedded into them. Attendees will be able to view this content on the phone display screen.

It’s an industry with a huge upside: By end-2005, ePaynews reported last week, "about 15,000 retailers in the US were predicted to accept Visa-branded contactless payment cards, with Visa USA estimating this total to exceed 35,000 by the end of 2006. As of December 2005, over 4.3 million MasterCard PayPass (contactless payment) cards and fobs were in circulation in the US, and about 25,000 merchants accepted PayPass."

And last week Chase Bank introduced contactless credit cards with blink technology, where the user simply swipes the card near a reader, instead of running it through a machine or handing it to the sales clerk.

The ViVOnfc offering itself includes ViVOwallet software which allows consumers secure access to soft cards directly on their NFC mobile phone screen and an over-the-air provisioning infrastructure which securely downloads credit, debit, prepaid, loyalty and gift cards.

Contactless readers are designed to provide easy, convenient and safe transactions in limited space counter environments such as movie theatres, ticket booths, quick service restaurants, car rental facilities, retail outlets and hospitality areas.

Last week French company ASK launched the RDR 400 series of contactless USB readers, used for contactless logical/physical access control, identity, banking and PC-based applications.

Based on CPL 400 couplers, the RDR 400 series readers support all current ISO dual interface/contactless cards and contactless tickets.

RDR 400 passed e-passport Interfest interoperability tests in Singapore, involving 124 different passports complying with ISO14443 type A or B standards from 28 countries to be tested on 40 readers.

David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.

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