Yesterday British startup TediPay and Russia’s CardsMobile presented their first joint solution at the Mobile World Congress exhibition in Barcelona.
Christened ‘Wildcard,’ this open platform allows banks and transport companies to offer their services via a range of wearable devices: smart and hybrid watches, bracelets, smart rings and more. The platform addresses four mass market applications — contactless payments, transit ticketing, access control and user authentication — with ability to securely provision and manage them online using smartphone.
The platform can be implemented an as overlay to a conventional mechanical watch, as demonstrated in Barcelona. Wildcard supports all types of contactless payments as well as all major transit protocols worldwide. Wearable devices are protected with multi-layer biometric security. The new solution will be available at a price affordable to the mass consumer, according to the two companies.
The Wildcard platform was developed on the basis of the PN66T, the latest in the family of integrated Secure Elements and NFC controllers from NXP Semiconductors. In addition to the NFC interface, the device features a fingerprint sensor for biometric user authentication, as well as Bluetooth Low Energy for seamless integration with any smartphone.
Combined with the CardsMobile API-based TSM service, this wearable platform opens up a range of possibilities “for any company willing to use wearables for all types of payment and identification services,” said CardsMobile’s CEO Kirill Gorynya.
“Never before could wearables be implemented in such a secure and accessible way, placing mass market functionality within easy reach of millions of users. With our innovative features and laser-sharp focus on practical everyday use cases, we have set a new benchmark for the global wearables market,” said TediPay’s CEO Alexander Peschkoff.
TediPay and CardsMobile announced their partnership this past December, with plans to invest $9 million in the project.
