In recent years, non-NFC (Near Field Communication) proximity technologies (e.g. QR-codes, Bluetooth-Low-Energy (BLE)) have been introduced in the market for various mobile payment services to enhance the consumer experience and to bring additional functionality and services to the customer (e.g. integration of payment with loyalty) and to overcome the lack of accessibility to the NFC antenna on some mobile operating systems.
The multi-stakeholder group on mobile contactless Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) card payments, facilitated by the EPC, has developed a white paper to create awareness on these mobile card payment solutions. The document aims to provide a high level overview of non-NFC based mobile SEPA card proximity payments (MCPPs), utilising SEPA card payments (as specified in the SEPA Cards Standardisation Volume) as the underlying payment instrument. In view of the current market deployments, the document has been restricted to proximity payments based on QR-codes and BLE technologies.
In addition to MCPP use cases, the document provides some insights into transaction characteristics and impacts on the Points of Interaction (POIs).
The white paper further mentions in the document some opportunities but also a number of gaps and challenges that are existing today and, if properly addressed, could encourage the market take-up of MCPPs.
The document aims to create awareness amongst the payments industry about the development of non-NFC based MCPP solutions and to provide a common understanding of the MCPP landscape. This final version also reflects the outcome of a 3-month public consultation that ended in February 2019.