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Technology

Contactless Data's technology revolves around the usage of devices enabled with NFC technology. NFC is an emerging wireless technology allowing devices such as mobile phones, USB dongles and point-of-service terminals to communicate securely over a short-range distance, typically within few centimeters, without any manual configuration unlike Bluetooth technology.

We combine the intuitive, yet powerful NFC technology with state-of-the-art client and enterprise software systems using a single underlying optimized and configurable core software stack developed over several years. We call our core technology the Flexible NFC Platform™.

The patent-pending Flexible NFC Platform is a full end-to-end SOA-based system with a highly modular and robust client-server architecture. Its server component is a highly scalable and distributed Java EE-based software system including a custom implementation of the GlobalPlatform standard, the de-facto industry standard for managing smart card chips. The Flexible NFC Platform is illustrated in the following diagram.


The components of the Flexible NFC Platform are described below.

  • Service Logic & Data System (SLDS)
    •  Multi-tasking rule-based engine providing the system's core logic and implementing all business rules for a given service instance. It operates as the system coordinator. It also provides encrypted data storage, access and manipulation via an internal SQL-based persistence subsystem with full replication and backup enabled. The SLDS is also connected to various external communication gateways (SMS, Email, etc...).

  • Card Management System (CMS)
    •  Custom implementation of GlobalPlatform card specifications with over-the-air (OTA) provisioning and personalization capability through secure socket channels and proprietary TLV-encapsulated APDU messages. Support for delegated management of security domains is also available.

  • Key Management System (KMS)
    •  Custom implementation of GlobalPlatform key management specifications with access to hardware security modules via a PKCS #11 interface.

  • Real-Time Processing System (RTPS)
    •  Highly performing processing system for XML and ISO 8583-based transactions originated from contactless service points. Authorization time on minimal deployment hardware averages 2 seconds with peak capacity currently at over 800 transactions per second.

  • Client Web Services System (CWSS)
    •  Restricted message-based entry point for client applications, either mobile phone-based wallet instances or PC-based custom interfaces.

  • UI Application
    •  Provides the graphically-rich user interface for the client software either on a mobile phone (Java ME, Android, iPhone,...) or a PC (ASP/JSP, Java SE, C/C++, ...). It communicates with the CWSS in order to present the available web services for a given service instance to the user. It also acts as a background proxy-client for the Identity Applet.

  • Identity Applet
    •  The Identity Applet is a smart card (Java Card) client which links the service user to a unique Primary Account Number (PAN) at a given contactless point-of-service. Access to the Identity Applet is restricted to mutually-authenticated authorized offcard entities with knowledge of a diversified secret key (3-DES, AES). In some instances, the Identity Applet is extended to behave as an UI application when graphical resources are available to the smart card host (e.g. STK, SCWS).

  • POS Module
    •  The Point-of-Service (POS) module is a thin library integrated within an existing or custom POS application allowing proximity transactions over the NFC channel (ISO 14443 & ISO 7816) and real-time processing via a connection with the RTPS.
     

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