New MicroPass Developers Kit for Contactless Payment Value-Added Applications is Available
Simplifies the process of incorporating microloyalty programs andtransit/access applications onto contactless payment cards
Aix en Provence, France, June 12th, 2007–INSIDE Contactless, a leading provider of advanced, open standard contactless chip technologies, today announced the availability of a new software development kit that makes it easy for card manufacturers and other developers to incorporate MicroLoyalty and other value-added applications such as transit, access, and ID within MicroPass® enabled contactless bank cards.
Available to card manufacturers, terminal manufacturers, personalization bureaus, systems integrators and issuers with in-house application development staff, INSIDE’s MicroPass SDK helps developers create retailer loyalty, transit, access, and simple ID applications and incorporate those applications onto a MicroPass contactless bank card. These data applications provide a simplistic way of creating a value-added experience at the contactless point of acceptance and related access points. Examples of how MicroPass can be utilized with additional value-added applications include:
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Issuer and/or Brand Driven Activation Incentives: A special incentive for first usage, multiple retailer usage, or contactless usage can be created by Issuers and/or card associations as a promotional application. Such applications can be deployed in a fine or broadly segmented manner.
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Payment & Legacy Transit Convergence: The incorporation of legacy transit electronic fare collection applications alongside open bank card payments can provide a strong value-add in metropolitan areas where transit is popular and density of contactless acceptance at other outlets is increasing.
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Payment & Legacy Access Control Convergence: Corporate, parking, and venue-specific access control functions alongside open bank card payments provides additional value-add to card holders looking for convenience.
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MicroLoyalty–Retailer Loyalty Programs: With the rapid emergence of contactless bank card payments, proactive issuers, merchants, co-brand partners, and service providers will increasing see the value of creating simple loyalty programs associated with these card products. As such programs for contactless loyalty can be fundamentally quite different from traditional mag stripe and EMV on-chip based loyalty schemes, INSIDE refers to contactless loyalty as ‘MicroLoyalty’. The incorporation of simple, instantaneous loyalty applications alongside contactless payments provides an ability to deliver more personalized service to consumers quickly (i.e. by friendly name greeting, use of favourites), to create simple ‘buy one get one free’ programs, and to create simple points programs.
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Airline Co-Brand Card Programs: An airline co-brand card is an ideal example where increased convenience–tap to check in, tap to pass thru security, tap to enter the club and be personally greeted, and tap to board–can be delivered, contributing to a more valuable bank card product.
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Student Card Programs: Lower cost, more simplistic contactless access with student/university co-brand cards can be delivered.
“The MicroPass SDK coupled with the use of MicroPass enabled card products will enable a next wave of contactless card usage–providing all the key benefits of contactless payments to stakeholders along with the additional convenience values gained from convergence with transit, retailer loyalty, and access/ID applications,” said Charles Walton, EVP of Payments for INSIDE Contactless. “INSIDE is proactively preparing to provide the platform and tools for value-added application creation as innovative issuers, retailers, and co-brand partners define innovative new card products.”
“New payment products, such as contactless, offer an opportunity to drive additional loyalty and deepen the consumer’s relationship with their payment card, such as access and loyalty,” said Ed Kountz, Sr. Analyst for Payments at JupiterResearch. “Platforms such as INSIDE’s MicroPass will be essential in supporting the successful development and deployment of such multi-application products.”
The latest generation of INSIDE’s MicroPass platform has been designed specifically to integrate these types of value-added applications alongside core payment applications. The data storage within MicroPass has been structured to accommodate multiple value-added programs per issuer. The MicroPass SDK consists of PC software to create/manage data profiles and personalize MicroPass based bank cards, 10 sample cards which are re-writeable, along with a contactless reader/writer. The MicroPass SDK is available today from INSIDE.
About INSIDE Contactless
As the only fabless semiconductor company focused exclusively upon contactless chip platforms, INSIDE Contactless is a market leader in Near Field Communication (NFC), contactless payments, and access control. Innovation in contactless technology has led to essential NFC technology patents granted to INSIDE along with more than 55 other patents. INSIDE is the #1 market share company in contactless payment market in the US with more than 20 million chip platforms delivered to bank card issuers through card manufacturer partners and more than 12 leading bank card issuers. More than 25 key partners around the global, including HID, Giesecke & Devrient, and SAGEM, have successfully delivered contactless products such as payment & access cards, point of sale terminals, NFC enabled mobile handsets, and other products which are ‘powered by INSIDE’. INSIDE Contactless is headquartered in Aix-en-Provence, France, with offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Poland, San Francisco, and Boston. For more information, please visit http://www.insidecontactless.com.
About MicroPass™
MicroPass is a family of intelligent hardware platforms designed to power open standard contactless and dual interface bank card payments in all global regions. Based upon a RISC architecture and optimized to the demanding requirements of contactless transactions, each of the MicroPass family of products feature low power consumption, fast transaction processing, and overall performance meeting the demands of issuer organizations in the bank card payments, transit, and access control markets. MicroPass is the platform of choice for card manufacturers and issuers in the US market with more than 20 million bank cards deployed which are MicroPass powered. INSIDE’s MicroPass L4-2G is an enhanced, next-generation microprocessor-based contactless chip platform designed specifically to meet multi-payment brand and multi-application requirements within the US contactless payment market. With very low power requirements, MicroPass also remains the most suitable core platform for key fob and alternative form factor deployments.