A pan-European consortium of companies, universities and user groups has been created to develop an open architecture for the development, deployment and use of NFC-enabled applications in mobile handsets.
Co-funded by the EU Information Society Technologies programme, the project called StoLPaN will define open commercial and technical frameworks for NFC-enabled services on mobile devices.
According to the group, many industries are employing contactless applications in increasing numbers for applications such as payment and transport ticketing. This suggests that the mobile phone may soon be complementary to cash and service cards.
“Recent announcements, such as the launch of contactless payment cards and terminals in London later this year, and the efforts of the GSM Association for NFC standardisation, clearly demonstrate the drive towards contactless services in the industry. NFC trials conducted around the world proved that consumers like the simplicity of using the mobile phone to access and securely pay for entertainment, information and services while on the move,” said the Consortium.
In order to accurately address the interoperability issues currently affecting the technology, various usage cases are to be defined within the StoLPaN framework and tested throughout Europe.
Consortium members are Motorola, NXP Semiconductors, Auto-ID-Lab St. Gallen, Banca Popolare di Vicenza, Bull, Baker&McKenzie, Consorzio Triveneto S.P.A., Consult Hyperion, Deloitte, Fornax, Libri, Safepay Systems, Sun Microsystems, T-Systems, as well as the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and Budapest Tech John von Neumann Faculty of Informatics.