The European Payments Council and GlobalPlatform Sign Memorandum of Understanding to Align Mobile Contactless Technology
18 May 2009 – A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been agreed between the decision making body of the European payments industry, the European Payments Council (EPC) and GlobalPlatform, the international specification body for smart card infrastructure, to coordinate their work initiatives within the mobile contactless environment. By signing the MoU the two parties aim to promote the availability of interoperable and neutral technology that will support a flexible and sustainable mobile payments marketplace.
The formal liaison relationship between the EPC and GlobalPlatform will ensure that the mobile contactless technical specifications and use cases of each organization are compatible and adhere to pre-defined common requirements for mobile payments. By synchronizing their activity the organizations will minimize the duplication of effort, have access to member-only work priorities, and capitalize on the impressive wealth of market and technical expertise available across both parties.
Sebastien Tormos, GlobalPlatform Chairman and Director of Marketing at Datacard Group , comments: “GlobalPlatform is committed to developing enhanced specifications that will offer many benefits to the mobile community. As part of this we recently released a white paper* which outlines how a scalable and sustainable mobile contactless ecosystem can best be realized by standardizing how organisations delivering a solution to market interact, facilitating new opportunities for existing deployments and avoiding proprietary solutions. Collaboration across industry associations is key to establishing such a usable and secure infrastructure, and we are therefore delighted to formally acknowledge our relationship with the EPC. We look forward to an ongoing, productive alliance.”
Dag-Inge Flatraaker, the Chairman of EPC M-Channel Group, states that: “We have now created and approved an EPC-Roadmap for mobile payments services such as SEPA contactless card proximity payments and SEPA remote payments. We clearly see the importance of working together with GlobalPlatform in the contactless domain in order to facilitate the implementation of our Roadmap, foster interoperability and contribute to a cohesive ecosystem that leverages the SEPA infrastructure implemented by the European banking industry.”
The first priority of the MoU is to verify compliancy between GlobalPlatform’s technology and the EPC use cases. Focus will also be placed on the capabilities of the GlobalPlatform Messaging Specification to standardize communication between the different players in the mobile proximity payments ecosystem such as banks, trusted service managers and mobile network operators. The second objective is to further analyse a possible co-operation on compliance and certification of the secure element that hosts the mobile payment application(s).
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For further GlobalPlatform media information, please contact Sarah Jones or Georgina D’Arcy at iseepr: globalplatform@iseepr.co.uk or telephone + (0) 1943 468007. For EPC media enquiries, please contact Herman Segers at EPC: herman.segers@europeanpaymentscouncil.eu or on +32 2 733 35 33.
About GlobalPlatform
*To download GlobalPlatform’s recent white paper entitled ‘The GlobalPlatform Proposition for NFC Mobile: Secure Element Management & Messaging’, please visit www.globalplatform.org.
2009 is the 10 th anniversary of GlobalPlatform - to learn more about its achievements click here
GlobalPlatform is the world leader in smart card infrastructure development. Its proven technical specifications for cards, devices and systems are regarded as the industry standard for achieving interoperable, sustainable and flexible smart card deployments that support multi-application, multi-actor and multi-business model implementations.
GlobalPlatform is a member driven association with cross-industry representation from all world continents. As of October 2008, an estimated 305.7 million GlobalPlatform-based smart cards had been deployed globally and an additional two billion mid range USIM/SIM cards worldwide are estimated to use GlobalPlatform card technology to enable over-the-air (OTA) application downloads for 3G and GSM mobile networks. www.globalplatform.org
About European Payments Council
The European Payments Council (EPC) is the decision-making and coordination body of the European banking industry in relation to payments. The EPC defines common positions for core payments services, provides strategic guidance for standardization, formulates best practices and supports and monitors implementation of decisions taken. The EPC consists of 74 members comprising banks and banking communities. More than 300 professionals from 31 countries are directly engaged in the work programme of the EPC, representing all sizes and sectors of the banking industry within Europe.
The EPC develops the payment schemes and frameworks necessary to realize the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). SEPA is an EU integration initiative in the area of payments designed to achieve the completion of the EU internal market and monetary union. SEPA is the area where citizens, companies and other economic participants can make and receive payments in euro, within Europe, whether between or within national boundaries under the same basic conditions, rights and obligations, regardless of their location. SEPA is currently defined as consisting of the EU 27 member states plus Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Principality of Monaco.
For further information please contact the EPC at secretariat@europeanpaymentscouncil.eu or visit the EPC website at www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu.
