Payment firm Carta Worldwide and Spanish lender Banco Sabadell have launched a pilot scheme for a NFC payment system using host card emulation (HCE).
The HCE system, which uses payment accounts securely hosted in the cloud, means banks no longer have to rely on telcos to place a physical ‘secure element’ on the phone’s SIM card.
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Albert Figueras, director of credit cards and consumer finance at Banco Sabadell said: "The most notable feature of this pilot is how easy it is for users to add their credit cards to their phone without having to manipulate any physical secure element or rely on 3rd party service providers."
The pilot scheme will run on Android OS KitKat 4.4 devices and will support NFC-based high value transactions with mobile PIN as well as normal NFC transactions.
Carta Worldwide CEO Brian Semkiw said: "HCE technology will accelerate the deployment of NFC based mobile products with a fraction of the cost of traditional models that are currently in market.
"I’m very excited about the potential for this technology breakthrough to accelerate deployment of NFC mobile payment services."
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