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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 smart tags, bracelets, USB dongles, mobile phones, 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 ( Android, BlackBerry, 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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