Asia NFC Alliance
NFC Service Roaming White Paper
Copyright © 2014 Asia NFC Alliance
NFC WHITEPAPER
June 11, 2014
Contents
Asia NFC Alliance NFC Service Roaming Whitepaper.................
1
Concept of Alliance NFC Alliance......................................................
3
Background..............................................................................................
3
Objectives.................................................................................................
4
Overview of NFC Applications............................................................
5
Smart Posters...........................................................................................
5
Peer-to-Peer Transfer...............................................................................
6
Card-based Applications..........................................................................
7
Today’s NFC Development in Asia....................................................
8
Japan........................................................................................................
8
Korea........................................................................................................
9
Hong Kong...............................................................................................
9
Taiwan......................................................................................................
10
NFC Service Roaming............................................................................... 11
E-Money.................................................................................................
11
Towards Barrier-Free NFC Service Roaming.................................. 13
Ecosystem................................................................................................
13
Benefits for Users....................................................................................
14
Benefits for Service Providers...................................................................
15
Benefits for Mobile Network Operators.....................................................
15
Common Touch Point Logo....................................................................
15
NFC Tag Based Services...........................................................................
16
Multilanguage NFC Smart Poster..............................................................
18
Cross Customer Transfer..........................................................................
18
Premium Experience...............................................................................
18
Card-based ..............................................................................................
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Concept of Alliance NFC Alliance
Background
There were a number of trials or demonstrations conducted in Asia between 2012 and 2013 to
showcase NFC services across borders or also known as NFC Service Roaming. All of these
trials or demonstrations were concerning two parties or two places only. From these trials or
demonstrations, the participating parties share the same vision – Realization of NFC Service
Roaming for Commercial Launch. To go beyond trials or demonstrations and to build a
bigger coverage in terms of geographical area or in terms of subscriber base, the idea of
forming an alliance was sparkled among several Asian mobile network operators. In March
2014, Asia NFC Alliance was formally established with founding members including Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) from Taiwan, KDDI from Japan, HKT from Hong Kong and SK Planet (SKP)
from Korea. GSM Association, a global association of mobile operators and related companies, is a partner of Asia NFC Alliance.
The following are the highlights of some of the trails:
KDDI and SKP Cross-border Service Trial
In June 2012, SKP and KDDI exhibited “NFC JOY”, including NFC-based ticketing, smart order
and parking in a simulated baseball stadium at Mobile Asia Expo 2012.
In August 2013, KDDI and SKP provided UICC-based discount coupon for restaurants in Shin
Okubo Korean town, Tokyo, Japan.
CHT and KDDI Cross-border Smart-Poster Trial
In June 2013, CHT and KDDI demonstrated multi-language NFC tag-based coupons at Mobile
Asia Expo 2013. In November 2013 of the same year, CHT and KDDI launched the service in
both Taipei and Okinawa.
HKT and CHT Cross-border Transport Application Demonstration
At Mobile Asia Expo 2013, HKT and CHT joint hands to demonstrate how the transport application for Taiwan can be over-the-air downloaded onto HKT’s NFC SIM. After successful download and activation, NFC phone together with the NFC SIM card can be used to do a number of
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things through the demonstration set-up such as paying for transport or paying for bicycle
rental.
Objectives
By uniting the driving forces in Asia and through collaboration among members, the Alliance
aims to
1. Remove technical barriers to achieve regional compatibility of NFC services so that any
service, regardless of its origin, can be made available to any mobile subscriber in Asia
2. Effectively promote local NFC services to different places in Asia where the Alliance has
coverage
3. Adopt open-approach to welcome new members from mobile network operators, service
providers, industry organizations or other relevant organizations
4. Ultimately expand footprint to global by exploring partnership opportunities
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Overview of NFC Applications
Smart Posters
NFC Smart Posters, defined as objects in or on which readable NFC tags have been placed, are
an innovative way for service providers to deliver information easily accessible by the users.
The objects with NFC tags can be a poster, billboard, magazine page or some other promotional materials. The NFC tags can contain information like a text message, a telephone
number, an URL etc. With any NFC phone, the users can simply tap on a NFC tag to receive a
text message from the tag, to retrieve a useful telephone number from the tag or to go to a
particular website following the URL embedded in the tag. NFC Smart Posters have been
widely adopted and used for many purposes, in many countries.
For example, in Taiwan, Chunghwa Telecom has put NFC smart posters at Taipei 101, a famous
landmark building in Taipei, for people to retrieve useful shopping information. Similarly in a
beautiful lake area called Sun-Moon Lake, NFC smart posters are also available for people to
retrieve tourist information.
(Figure:1)
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In Hong Kong, advertising agencies are using NFC Smart Posters to create interactions with
the people to deliver promotion information or to start a game for free gift.
(Figure:2)
1. NFC tag to retrieve product information
2. NFC tag to prompt to a website for sending electronic greeting card
3. NFC tags to build a virtual store
Peer-to-Peer Transfer
Peer-to-peer transfer is referring to the scenario when two NFC devices or two NFC phones
being held close to each other to transfer data over NFC channel. When the amount of data to
be transmitted is relatively small, NFC shall be pretty good enough. When the amount of data
to be transmitted is large, NFC shall be used to trigger another wireless connection such as
Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
Using NFC to trigger Bluetooth or Wi-Fi gives convenience to the users by avoiding device or
handset configurations. Today, there are many electronic products coming with NFC functionality. These electronic products are using NFC technology to trigger Bluetooth pairing, for
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example, between tablet and speaker such that music can be transmitted from the tablet to
the speaker over Bluetooth channel. Other than tablet or speaker, it can be easily seen that
digital camera with built-in NFC technology to automatically set-up Wi-Fi connection.
(Figure:3)
(Figure:4)
Card-based Applications
Today, there are many contactless smart-cards in circulations for different purposes. You may
have put a couple of them in your wallet. You probably have several credit cards supporting
contactless payment (VISA payWave or MasterCard PayPass), coffee card with stored value for
purchase of drinks or staff card for access to your office. When we come to the world of NFC,
all these contactless applications can be emulated in the SIM. With your NFC phone and a
single NFC SIM card, it is possible to host several of these applications to fulfill your daily life’s
needs.
In Hong Kong, HKT customers, who got the Octopus Mobile SIM from HKT and compatible
NFC phone, are able to enjoy secure mobile payment under Octopus' extensive transport and
retail coverage all over Hong Kong.
(Figure:5)
In Taiwan, Chunghwa Telecom subscribers, who have downloaded Hami digital wallet with
virtual Easy Card, are able to use NFC service in public transportation system payments and
use at over 14,000 stores, including convenience stores and supermarkets.
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(Figure:6)
Today’s NFC Development in Asia
Japan
NTT DOCOMO, KDDI, and SoftBank Mobile have established “Japan Mobile NFC Consortium” in
December 2011. The consortium is looking for corporate members and makes the effort to
expand NFC services. The purposes of the consortium are to
1. establish a service environment where consumers can use NFC services both domestically
and overseas
2. implement a common service specification for domestic mobile operators and establish a
service platform where service providers can provide their services quickly at a low cost.
KDDI actively collaborates with service providers and launch NFC services including:
• In January 2012, KDDI started providing the NFC service platform for the first time in
Japan.
• In October 2012, Japan Airlines and KDDI started an NFC-based boarding service JAL
Touch and Go Boarding” for KDDI NFC handsets.
• In October 2013, Universal Studio Japan and KDDI started “Wonder Money”, which is
an NFC-based e-money service for mobile.
• In March 2014, eBCard and KDDI started “mobile cashbee”, which is an NFC-based
e-money in Korea.
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• In March 2014, Orico and KDDI started “Orico Mobile Visa payWave” service.
• In March 2014, SMCC and KDDI started “Mitsui Sumitomo Card Visa payWave”
service.
Korea
In 2012, SK Planet launched NFC Open Platform known as <Smart Touch> in Korea. <Smart
Touch> is the first in the world to provide various services by building the Market Leadership
of the NFC Market focusing on MNO.
<Smart Touch> enables a platform that the developers or service providers can develop and
deploy a NFC service easily. The platform supports all processes from development to deployment through Web interfaces. Also, API & IDE are available to access both contactless terminals and server.
<Smart Touch> also facilitates offline activities through websites including business discussion, partnership, agreement, etc and provides calculation and statistic services after service
launch.
SK Planet promotes open and standard approach on technical implementation. When targeting SIM platform for NFC services, SK Planet, based on international standard GP2.2 (including
GP2.1), provides a library called SEM which controls all USIMs and provides an Open MNO TSM
for service provisioning in USIM. This open and standard approach ensures high compatibility
with users’ devices and ensures high stability on the service quality.
The introduction of <Smart Touch> has proven that the service development process can be
largely optimized (from more than 12 months to 5 months). This optimization results in quick
service launch for both payment and non-payment services. In 2013, there were 10 services
launched.
Hong Kong
2013 is an exciting year for NFC development in Hong Kong. There were a number of NFC
service commercial launches or announcements which had created strong momentum for
NFC development.
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Dating back to 2012, HSBC was the bank in Hong Kong first launched mobile payment service
via iPhone. Following HSBC’s service launch, Hang Seng Bank announced partnership with
Hong Kong Telecommunications (HKT) in end 2012 to deliver SIM-based NFC mobile payment
service. The service was successfully launched in June 2013. In the 2nd half of 2013, there
were intensive activities around NFC including:
• October – The launch of Octopus Mobile SIM by Octopus Cards Limited with HKT.
HKT’s customers shall be able to use their NFC phones and Octopus Mobile SIM to
pay for transport or retail purchase.
• October – Bank of China Hong Kong launched microSD-based NFC mobile payment
service
• October – Jetco, a Hong Kong ATM network provider, plans to offer mobile payment
solutions to the member banks to support NFC mobile payment services
• November – 3 Hong Kong and Citibank Hong Kong launched the 3 Citi Wallet, an
NFC mobile wallet solution for customers of 3 Hong Kong who also have a Citibank
credit card
• November – Hang Seng Bank announced extension of service coverage to the
customers of CSL and SmarTone
• December – HSBC announced partnership with HKT, CSL, SmarTone and China
Mobile Hong Kong for the provision of SIM-based NFC mobile service
In 2014, banks subsequently have rolled out various mobile payment services with different
mobile network operators to the market.
Apart from mobile payment service, Hong Kong has different live NFC use cases to go. The
most remarkable cases include handset manufacturers promoting NFC support in their electronic devices to ease Bluetooth pairing and advertising agents or merchants using
Smart-poster technology to promote their products or services.
Taiwan
In Taiwan, Chunghwa Telecom and four operators with EasyCard Corporation establish a
Trusted Service Management (TSM) company which will forge an NFC platform offering
mobile payment service in 2013. Easy card can be used in public transportation system
payments and used at over 14,000 stores, including convenience stores and supermarkets.
Chunghwa Telecom, a major mobile network operator in Taiwan, is cooperating with Master-
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Card and Cathay United Bank to provide a mobile payment service in May 2013. This service
allows Chunghwa Telecom mobile subscribers to download virtual credit cards via
Over-the-Air (OTA) technology on the Chunghwa’s Hami digital wallet. The wallet supports
multiple credit and bank cards, loyalty cards, coupons etc.
Chunghwa Telecom subscribers could use their mobile phone equipped with NFC technology
for contactless payment at over 20,000 MasterCard PayPass readers in Taiwan. Also, this pilot
supports NFC mulit-services, like coupon& loyalty services.
Continuously, there are another three Taiwanese banks, Chinatrust Commercial, E.Sun, Taishin,
as well as mobile phone makers HTC etc., all support and cooperate with this service.
NFC Service Roaming
As already emphasized in the early section of this whitepaper, Asia NFC Alliance has focus on
the development of NFC service roaming. Some of the alliance members are already the
pioneer and have launched services. One of the well established cases is E-Money between
Korea and Japan.
E-Money
cashbee is an NFC-based prepaid e-money launched by eB-Card Corporation, a subsidiary
company of Lotte group, in December 2010. As of May 2014, cashbee service has 70,000 retail
aceeptance points and there are eleven million cashbee users in Korea. Users can download
“mobile cashbee” application from Google Play and charge the amount via credit-card transactions or bank transfer. “mobile cashbee” application also provides transportation guide and
royalty coupons for affiliated stores.
On March 28, 2014, eB-Card Corporation, SBI AXES Co., Ltd. from Japan (Head Office: Shibuya,
Tokyo) and KDDI Corporation had started “mobile cashbee” for KDDI NFC-enabled smartphone users.
With mobile cashbee, the KDDI NFC-enabled smartphone users can enjoy the services at the
following retail stores:
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• Convenience stores: 7-Eleven, Buy the way, CU, GS25, Ministop, Storyway;
• Restaurants: Lotteria, Paris Baguette, Angel-in-us, PASCUCCI, Jamba Juice, Krispy
Kreme Doughnuts, Dunkin' Donuts, Bizeun, Natuur, Baskin-Robbins;
• Retail: Lotte Supermarket, Lotte Mart, Lotte Department Store;
KDDI NFC-enabled smartphone users can use mobile cashbee for transportation including taxi.
In fall 2014 or later, both subway and bus shall also be covered.
(Figure:7)
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Towards Barrier-Free NFC Service Roaming
The Alliance has planned a number of NFC roaming services which shall give the greatest
convenience and values to the travelers in the region. The availability of NFC roaming services
shall come into phases. During the initial phases, tag-based services shall be available first and
this kind of services is open to any mobile subscribers carrying NFC phones. The phases
afterward shall have the focus on Card-based Services. Card-based Services require putting
contactless card applications in NFC SIM. Thus, Card-based Services shall be provided to the
subscribers of mobile network operators in the Alliance only.
Ecosystem
The Alliance’s vision on NFC Service Roaming is about to create a fully interoperable and
robust environment such that services or contents by a provider in one place can be made
available easily to the users in another place. The services or the contents concerned are
primarily accessible by NFC through Tap-n-Go experience. NFC Roaming Services to be driven
by the Alliance shall be targeted to tourists or travelers in Asia. Localization is also believed to
make NFC Roaming Services more user-friendly to the users.
SERVICE
CONTENT
Japan SP
SERVICE
CONTENT
Taiwan SP
SERVICE
CONTENT
Korea SP
SERVICE
CONTENT
Hong Kong SP
Common Platform
Japan MNO
Taiwan MNO
Korea MNO
Japanese Users
Taiwanese Users
Korean Users
HONG Kong
MNO
HongKong Users
(Figure:8)
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Benefits for Users
NFC Roaming brings greatest convenience to tourists or travelers by making local services or
contents for the destination easily available and accessible. For example,
1. A user can download transport applications or tickets onto his NFC phone before his/her
trip to the destination. With the phone, the user can be enjoying local transport services
or can be directly getting entrance admission to museums, theme parks or events without
worrying about the ways to buy the tickets.
2. A user can retrieve tourist information by simple tap-n-go experience through NFC
smart-poster technology
3. A user can get access to useful and practical mobile services without the hassle of configurations by simple tap-n-go experience through NFC smart-poster technology
Definitely, localization is giving another level of friendliness to the users. Intelligence can be
added to detect the language preference of the user and to display information in that
language.
By creating a fully connected environment, the users can have a pool of choices for the selection of services or contents with respect to the target location or their preferences.
Benefits for Service Providers
The Alliance represents a network of mobile network operators sharing the same vision and
achieving common goals through collaboration. To service providers, they can simply contact
one of the alliance members local to them and the Alliance shall be pleased to explore the
possibility of region-wide collaboration. The potential services shall possibly be introduced to
all of the alliance members and be introduced to the markets covered by the Alliance.
From technical perspective, the Alliance aims at creating a fully interoperable and robust
environment such that technical barriers can be removed as much as possible and complexity
of integration can be minimized. Through simplification of technical implementation, one
service can be made easily and faster available to the people in each area covered. From
business perspective, service providers shall be able to consider bigger market with fewer
efforts or less costs.
The Alliance also concerns the user experience throughout the service journey. With the
united resources and power of the Alliance, user education, service promotion and service
support shall be all taken into account in both region-wide and local scales. Localization
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support shall also be provided to give the best user experience to the users in each area.
In summary, the Benefits for Service Providers shall be:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Effective channel to introduce service to the markets concerned and covered
Lower integration and deployment cost to reach multiple markets
Faster time to market through less barriers
Bigger economy of scale using alliance approach
Better user experience through different kinds of support by alliance members
Better user education and bigger service promotion by the Alliance and the alliance
members in each area respectively
Benefits for Mobile Network Operators
The Alliance believes that an open approach is the best practice to unite driving force to push
for bigger and healthier development of NFC. The Alliance welcomes any other mobile operators to join and contribute.
Through collaboration among mobile network operators, it shall be effectively reducing
obstacles on technical implementation and business justification by learning from each other
and possibly optimizing the costs by removing some technical challenges and improving the
economy of scale. Also, to mobile network operators, one connection to the common environment opens up access to more services. More services mean more variety can be offered
to the subscribers of the mobile network operators. This definitely creates more happy
customers for the mobile network operators.
In addition, the co-operation between a mobile network operator in one place and a local
service provider may also be extended and introduced to the Alliance. This catalyzes the
formation of bigger network having both mobile network operators and service providers
such that NFC Roaming Services can be in more variety covering more travel destinations to
give unparalleled convenience to the end-users.
In summary, the Benefits for Mobile Network Operators shall be:
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•
•
•
•
•
Networking channel to learn from each other on the development of NFC
Lower costs by leveraging the economy of scale
Accessibility to a portfolio of services overseas for local customers
Better experience to users through different kinds of support by alliance members
Better user education and bigger service promotion by the Alliance and the alliance
members in each area respectively
Common Touch Point Logo
To the users, the most important thing for them is to easily recognize the service points. The
use of common logo enables the users, regardless of their home country or regardless of their
mobile service providers, to have quick recognition of NFC services and to have easy access to
NFC services provided by the members of the Alliance. There shall also be variances from the
common logo to further indicate a specific service.
The Alliance shall be moving towards Common Touch Point Logo for the service launch.
NFC Tag Based Services
The essence of cross-border NFC tag based services is gateway server that associates an NFC
tag and destination URL. The URL of the gateway server with an identifier of a NFC tag (tag ID)
as a parameter is inscribed in an NFC tag. A browser will launch and send the request to the
gateway server when an end-user taps ones NFC-enabled handset on the tag. The gateway
server retrieves the tag ID and the URL of the destination URL for the NFC tag as a redirect URL.
The destination URL can be a web server, information system, E-commerce site and so on. The
associations between NFC tags and destination URL can be easily changed via a web interface.
This redirect method yields flexible NFC services including Multilanguage NFC smart poster,
cross transfer customer, and premium experience. Furthermore, end-users do not need to
install service specific applications to their handsets.
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(Figure:9)
Multilanguage NFC Smart Poster
A browser sends the request language as “Accept-Language” header in a HTTP/HTTPS request.
The gate way server can return distinct URLs based on the request language. Multilanguage
NFC smart poster including tourist information, mobile coupons can be implemented with this
feature.
Tourist Information
The destination URL can be a link to a website for tourist information. To make this service
more friendly to the users, the web server shall have information of multiple languages for
foreigner.
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Mobile Coupons
The destination URL can be a link to a website for electronic coupon download. To make this
service more friendly to the users, intelligence shall be added to detect users’ language preference and information related the coupons shall be displayed in that language.
The electronic coupon can be an image to show all the necessary information like the offer,
usage condition or merchant’s address or an image with a barcode or QR-code embedded for
redemption purpose or a NFC coupon which can be redeemed through tap-n-go experience
with a contactless reader at the merchant’s point-of-sales.
Cross Customer Transfer
The gateway sever can provide arbitrary website as an advertisement before redirecting the
destination URL. This feature yields cross customer transfer services. For example, we can
implement a cross customer transfer between a restaurant and souvenir shop in sightseeing
revenue. The browser displays the discount coupon of the souvenir shop and moves to the
restaurant’s website showing recommended dishes in the restaurant and vice versa.
Premium Experience
The gateway server can change the destination URL based on date, day, time, language and
the number of touches. Service providers can offer premium experience to end users based on
this flexibility. For example, a bar can offer special drink coupon available only in Monday
night. In this case, the destination address is a website showing the special coupon in Monday
night and another site showing menu list otherwise.
Card-based Services
Card-based Services meaningful for roaming refer to the services available only in a particular
location. Typical example today is local transport. When you go to Taiwan, you probably
want to buy Easy Card for local transport or payment at some retails. When you go to Korea,
you probably need cashbee.
To make these services roaming such that convenience can be brought the users, the challenge shall be the possibility of downloading these contactless applications onto users’ SIM
before their trips to the destinations. From the user’s angle, the perfect scenario shall be
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downloading all necessary applications for the trip such as airline boarding pass, local transport card or even theme park day pass or hotel room key. Apparently, the users can enjoy
easy travelling with their own phones for all the needs.
The Alliance aims at working with different service providers to build a good portfolio of
card-based services including, but not limited to:
•
•
•
•
Local Transport
Ticketing
Door Access
Airline Boarding Pass
• In January 2012, KDDI started providing the NFC service platform for the first time in
Japan.
• In October 2012, Japan Airlines and KDDI started an NFC-based boarding service JAL
Touch and Go Boarding” for KDDI NFC handsets.
• In October 2013, Universal Studio Japan and KDDI started “Wonder Money”, which is
an NFC-based e-money service for mobile.
• In March 2014, eBCard and KDDI started “mobile cashbee”, which is an NFC-based
e-money in Korea.
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For further information please check the official website:
www.asianfcalliance.org