Tagattitude launches mobile payments system
18 October, 2011
category: NFC
Tagattitude, a French company specializing in electronic transactions, has announced the launch of what it’s calling NFC2.0, a mobile payments system that enables NFC-like contactless mobile transactions without the need for an actual NFC chip.
According to Tech Cruch, the entirely software-based solution transfers data using a supersonic signal from the phone’s speaker, rather than send high frequency radio waves, as is the case with NFC.
No extra hardware is required to use the solution, which can be used on any network and is supported on every major network and smart phone OS, including Android, Symbion, iOS and BlackBerry, according to Tagattitude.
In addition to contactless payments at the point of sale, the solution can also be used for other NFC-esque applications such as ticketing, e-couponing, social networking, gaming and more.
The company calls the sound-based technology behind NFC2.0 ‘Near Sound Data Technology’ (NSDT), in which the mobile phone’s microphone is used as a captor and its audio channel as a transporter. Unlike with a mobile wallet, your banking information is not saved to your phone; instead the phone uses the audio signal to connect to the Bank’s server to retrieve the information.
Tagattitude already offers a simplified NSDT-based payments solution for feature phones and other basic models. The more sophisticated NFC2.0 uses NSDT in conjunction with a ‘TagPay’ mobile payment app and payments acceptance software integrated at the point of sale. Check out the video for a demonstration on how the solution comes together.
The NFC2.0 TagPay application is now available in Apple’s AppStore and will be available on the Android Market in January 2012 for U.S. and French customers.