The SD Association has announced a new collaboration with GlobalPlatform to include smart-chip technology in SD standards, enabling mobile phones and other portable CE devices to provide authentication services with SD memory cards.
According to the association, standardized authentication services on microSD and full-size SD memory cards would transform consumers’ mobile phones and CE devices into electronic wallets, enabling NFC-enabled cashless payments and paperless identification, plus a variety of value-added applications leveraging NFC.
According to the association, offering NFC on SD memory cards opens new business models for any authentication process, including:
- Mobile commerce. Consumers can use devices equipped with smart microSD cards to make contactless payments for anything from groceries to subway fare.
- Customized services. Content and service providers can customize features, offers and rewards automatically, eliminating manual entry of customer identifiers such as account or rewards card numbers. For example, airlines could automatically review customer accounts for upgrade and other frequent flier rewards.
- Secure access/Personal ID. Users could store digital identification cards and redeem access control credentials on their mobile device.
- Secure voice. Smart microSD cards can support hardware encrypted voice services, a security method used by governments, emergency services and corporations.
In each of these new business models, the microSD and full-size SD memory cards would provide the secure element, based on GlobalPlatform standards, for authorization purposes and would only be active in the authorized device.
According to the association, SD standards are currently supported in at least 80% of all mobile phones with removable memory. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/nfcnews-4.gif)
