JCB and Cassis team on OTA m-payments trial

JCB and CASSIS International will jointly demonstrate end-to-end secure contactless payment issuance services for NFC mobile phones. The demonstration will begin this April with the following services to ensure secure over-the-air registration of customer data:

• Application and security life cycle management
• Creation of security domain on-the-fly
• Secure EMV data processing for JCB application
• Load, install, block, un-block and delete application
• Customer service and audit

CASSIS is providing market-proven platforms and solutions to the collaboration that will enable customers to receive JCB card application and account information securely over-the-air on their NFC enabled handset anywhere in the world.

CASSIS is a trusted service manager for commercial NFC projects for leading Asia Pacific mobile operators and financial institutions. "We are pleased to cooperate with JCB in this exciting project. We have been providing trusted service manager services to financial institutions since 2003, and have now evolved into provisioning cross industry services for the NFC ecosystem," said Thian Yee Chua, CEO, and CASSIS International. "This agreement is a major milestone for CASSIS, and we are proud that it acknowledges CASSIS leadership in over-the-air remote management of secure services."

"Secure over-the-air service is a key factor in mobile payment. One primary consideration is to select a partner that has a proven track record and can grow with our needs," said Tom Okabe, senior vice president of Global Infrastructure and Technologies at JCB. "NFC is going to happen in many markets soon, and we need to be ready for commercial deployment when it does. CASSIS has the infrastructure and the proven solution to execute our strategies."

Aplix Solutions, Inc. will be collaborating with CASSIS to provide support to JCB. "This project has a lot of potential for the future. The mobile handset is becoming more and more important as a tool in our daily lives, and the need for secure application download over-the-air is growing just as fast," said Masaaki Sekino, CEO, Aplix Solutions Co. Ltd. "Our strong expertise in the mobile industry is going to help make this project a success."

NFC technology is promoted by a non-profit industry association established in 2004 by leading mobile communications, semiconductor and consumer electronics companies. According to the latest forecast from ABI Research, 20% of the global mobile handset market will ship with built-in NFC capabilities by 2012.