The GSMA’s Board, which met in November at the GSMA Congress in Macau, China, fully supports the need for the ETSI-endorsed single wire protocol standard to provide the interface between the universal integrated circuit card (UICC, or SIM card) and the embedded NFC chipset within the handset.
The NFC chip can communicate with existing contactless readers to deliver a wide range of secure, interoperable and transparent services, such as credit and debit payments.
Rob Conway, CEO of the GSMA, said: “There is no doubt that there is a huge latent demand for a large variety of mobile transaction services, of which there is universal interest in proximity payments, as trials across the world have already shown. We are committed to ensuring that mobile payment services are delivered as efficiently and cost effectively as possible. But this will require device manufacturers to make sure that the vast majority of commercially available handsets incorporate the single wire protocol and NFC features as standard.”