Mobile Payment Standards On the Horizon
May 1, 2007 by Jayvee Fernandez
Filed under Cell phone, Editorial, The Unwired Life
It’s a bit scary that the new NFC technology is slowly gaining momentum. I say this as a good thing, but it is scary at the same time. For one, we can get all clumsy with our mobile phones. With the phone slowly taking the place of the credit card, we can lose more than our contact list. The added fear of having our purchasing power in someone else’s hands sure does bring home the jitters. Are we ready to turn our phones into all encompassing assistants?
Debate has been raging in the industry about where to locate the “secure element,” or system for storing private data, in phones equipped with near field communications (NFC) technology. NFC enables any two devices to connect and exchange information or access content and services simply by bringing them together over a distance of a few centimeters.
This new technology is being pushed in the form of the Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) which will be integrated into phones as soon as the white papers and technical details are worked out. Scary. Exciting. Stark yet potent.
BTW, UICC is the same thing as a SIM card. Well, to be exact, SIM is something which sits on the UICC, but to the layman there’s not a difference. The discussion is really about the integration of the Secure Element (the thing which holds your security tokens) into the SIM card.
Also, NFC is not really a new technology. It’s based on age-old smart card standards; just like the contactless cards used with public transport.
There isn’t much difference between losing a credit card or a phone – except that the phone can be shut down way faster than a credit card, since it’s got a radio
. There are also some other things which make it in fact, more secure than a regular credit card. But of course, it all depends on whether people actually feel secure when using it…