On Track Innovations Ltd. (OTIV)

[midastouch017]

CapOne Keen on HCE; OTI Wave Attachment

Published: Nov 27 2013


NFC Times Exclusive: When Capital One dropped out of the Isis trial in September, some people thought the issuer–one of the largest in the U.S.­–would be back, perhaps after it waited to see if Isis would actually take off.

That might still be the case, but it appears Capital One has other plans, as well.

NFC Times has learned Capital One has been seriously looking at host-card emulation as a way to introduce mobile payments on Android NFC phones and avoid fees it considers excessive to put its application onto NFC SIM cards. It is also believed to be preparing for a launch of an NFC-enabled attachment, presumably for the iPhone, from Israel-based On Track Innovations.

The attachment, called Wave, which fits into the audio jack of Android and iOS devices, recently received certification from MasterCard Worldwide to run a PayPass application on an embedded chip in the dongle.

With the attachment and with host-card emulation, if it goes ahead with either idea, Capital One would be able to avoid secure elements owned by telcos.

Of course, it would need a waiver from the card schemes to introduce host-card emulation, or HCE, on NFC phones using an open-loop payment application. HCE is not certified by Visa, MasterCard or any other major scheme.

http://nfctimes.com/blog/dan-balaban/capone-keen-hce-oti-wave-attachment-0