INSIDE Contactless, a provider of contactless chip technologies, has launched a new class of mobile payment solutions that banks, brands, transit agencies and others can deploy easily and in a highly targeted way starting in 2010. Reportedly, INSIDE has already engaged with several technology companies to develop a variety of mobile payment solutions based on its MicroPass platform that will enable existing mobile phones to support mobile payments, as well as transit, ID and access control applications.
The company has said that mobile handset stickers can turn just about any personal item – from a mobile phone to an employee ID badge – into a payment device. Although not electronically connected to the phone, these stickers are able to support debit, prepaid debit and credit card payments, and are convenient plastic card replacements.
INSIDE has added that several new mobile payment solutions coming to market from partners through INSIDE’s initiative will enable mobile phones to integrate with a MicroPass-based secure element outside the phone, enabling solutions to be deployed more rapidly in 2010. Using microSD cards, existing BlueTooth channels, existing data connections, and other methods to communicate with the phone, these peripheral solutions will open the door to more robust, NFC-like payment, transit and access control applications in a next phase of deployment. These solutions are expected to allow a mobile phone user to easily make a payment from among several virtual credit or debit cards stored within the mobile payment peripheral device, see the balance remaining on prepaid debit cards or transit passes, and even collect and redeem coupons and loyalty points.
Charles Walton, executive vice president for INSIDE Contactless, said: “We have launched this initiative because we see an opportunity to support our partners and customers with a new class of MicroPass payment options designed to enable alternative mobile payment solutions as early as the start of next year. As the leader in contactless payment solutions.”
“INSIDE is in a unique position because of our relationships with bank card issuers, transit agencies, brands, access control companies and others, as well as with the technology innovators who are trying to produce new kinds of mobile payment solutions, and we have proven contactless payment chip platforms that have been certified by the major card brands. Whether it’s NFC or a mobile payment peripheral solution, INSIDE can provide compatibility and a future evolution path because the same chips, the same operating system, the same performance, the same security and the same interface that works with the same contactless readers are utilized,” he added.
