The payments
industry has undergone dramatic changes over the past decade,
including technological advances, unlikely partnerships and an
increase consumer adoption for ‘smart’ ways to pay. GlobalPlatform
is taking note and is feeling the pressure to evolve its position
and practices in a bid to keep up with the pace.
Smart cards have progressed rapidly
over the past decade, transforming the way organisations conduct
business and consumers access services globally. From mobile
payment to government ID cards, we are all realising the full
potential of this powerful technology.
Go deeper with GlobalData
The evolution of the smart card
landscape now utilises many different embedded technology form
factors, and as such the international specification body for smart
card infrastructure has been forced to change its positioning to
‘the standard for managing applications on secure chip technology’,
in order not only to reflect today’s reality but to accurately
reflect its widely acknowledged value proposition.
Collaboration between the financial
and government sectors in the late 1990s resulted in an open
platform architecture of specifications for the smart card
industry. Since then, GlobalPlatform has positioned itself as an
international association focused on establishing and maintaining
an interoperable and sustainable card infrastructure.
Working as a collective group, the
body developed a suite of royalty-free specifications which created
a neutral and secure framework for single and multiple application
deployments and lifecycle management.
Since its inception, however, the
multiple application smart card industry has advanced beyond
recognition and beyond the historic positioning of the smart card
platform.
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By GlobalData
The evolution of the
industry
GlobalPlatform has
seen the payments industry begin adopting different forms of
embedded technologies to protect assets – such as data, key and
applications – from physical or software attacks. These platforms
include application processors, SD cards, USB tokens and secure
elements, as well as smart cards.
Multiple application infrastructure
has also become a reality, as the commercial benefits of delivering
more than one application via a single device have created a
thriving and limitless landscape.
New partnerships have emerged as
markets converge to share infrastructure, expertise and services to
launch exciting secure chip trials and deployments. Mobile payment
is a key example of this. Actors such as mobile network operators,
handset providers and financial organisations are working together
for the first time.
Crucially, end users have embraced
smart technologies. The adoption and reliance of the mobile phone
and the transition to chip and PIN financial transactions in some
countries means that consumers are familiar and eager to embrace
the technological advances on offer. The demand for convenience and
interesting applications is significant.
These trends have highlighted
particular requirements of the marketplace going forward.
Firstly, technology needs to
support multiple applications and services on a single, shared
device. This has to happen in a secure manner while providing
end-user convenience.
Application and service delivery
will most likely originate from more than one provider, yet these
parties all need to interact and create an end-to-end solution that
is both user-friendly and profitable.
Providers from different industries
will deploy services using different or multiple business models
but due to cross industry requirements, standards will need to be
harmonised. This is to mitigate the risk of specifications
fracturing at such a critical time of market development, and to
simplify the adoption of cross-industry technology.
In order to bring all elements
together into a sustainable ecosystem, application deployment and
management technology has to be secure, flexible, scalable and
interoperable to evolve with the dynamic advances of this
marketplace.
A changing market
position
To align with this evolution and
these core trends, GlobalPlatform has advanced its specifications
and terminology; essentially building a trusted end-to-end solution
to serve multiple actors and support several business models.
Although the association had
evolved to keep pace with the evolution of technology and markets,
its external positioning did not reflect the reality of its
offering.
In December 2010, GlobalPlatform
announced it had redefined its scope as “the cross industry,
not-for-profit association which identifies, develops and publishes
specifications which facilitate the secure and interoperable
deployment and management of multiple embedded applications on
secure chip technology”.
GlobalPlatform’s commitment to
advancing a neutral and scalable secure chip technology landscape
continues to remain its core strategy, and key to this is the
resource investment to develop and maintain an open compliance
programme ecosystem, ensuring the long-term interoperability of
secure chip technology.
As from its very inception,
GlobalPlatform’s members will continue to dictate and drive
activity forward to ensure secure chip technology fully achieves
its mass market potential.
Kevin Gillick is an executive
director at GlobalPlatform.
