innovations with nfc

I suppose some might wonder why i bothered to post so heavily on near field communication technology on the Keycorp forum. Keycorp would not appear to be directly concerned with what is essentially at least for the present a mobile technology (other than with enabling terminals to handle mobile payments). i wonder sometimes myself. but then we occassionally get a glimpse of how things can fall into place and a company can be in the right place at the right time.
Multos appears as the card platform of the future and as we know Keycorp have a solid interest in its development and ownership. BUT smartcard uptake has appeared to be rather haphazard and slow (its not really y'know). Then there appears a new mobile wave called contactless and even more exciting NFC. Not much infrastucture for it but some can see a wave about to break and now everybody wants to get on. Particularly of interest to the developing countries where mobile communications is so important..the chance for a leapfrog effect.

The following report is in this context..

"March 24, 2008
NFC Set to Be the New Mobile Mantra in India
By Raju Shanbhag
TMCnet Contributing Editor
The remote corners of India with their high illiteracy and extreme poverty are not exactly the places where you will expect a modern communication technology such as Near Field Communication (NFC) to prosper. But that’s happening; and it’s proving to be a major boon for small farmers and daily laborers in remote villages of Andhra Pradesh’s Medak and Warangal districts.


NFC is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that enables consumers to securely exchange and store all kinds of information, simply by bringing two devices close together. It evolves from a combination of networking technologies and contactless identification. It also enables convenient short-range communication between a Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) card and an NFC-enabled mobile phone, or between two NFC devices.

This pilot was rolled out by ‘A Little World’, a provider of the ZERO mobile platform for inclusive banking. The company aims to up micro banks in every village in India, with the help of this technology. The farmers in these areas of Andhra Pradesh state of India have been given smartcards that contain the identity of the customer such as name, address, photograph, fingerprint templates and relevant details of the savings or loan accounts held by the issuing bank. When a farmer wishes to make a transaction, the NFC-enabled phone verifies the data from the smartcard and sends its back to the concerned bank through another NFC enabled portable device. A receipt will be given for every transaction he makes through the terminal printer.

The technology, which is developed by NXP and Sony in 2002, is set to rock the markets in the next three years. It is expected that about 25 per cent of the mobile phones, available in the market are expected to have NFC capability. Currently, leading mobile vendors like Samsung, Motorola (News - Alert), Sony Erricson and Benq have rolled out at least one model with NFC technology."


So that what may well happen is that the wave of NFC uptake will sweep smartcards along with it.. possibly a trend that will emerge as rapidly in India and China along with major advanced pockets in the West...like the transportation trials in New York and in France. With all this Multos on advanced multi-application cards will play its part as a background and hopefully be so accepted that you wont even know its there while innovative developments push the technology into its historical place.
Latest white paper from the smart card alliance:
http://www.smartcardalliance.org/pages/publications-co-branded-multi-application-contactless-cards