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Even in the Arctic Circle, consumers value transaction security, according to a small trial of Near Field Communication-based mobile ticketing that Norway-based mobile operator Telenor Group held last fall in the far northern Norwegian city of Tromso. In a survey of the roughly 30 participants following the trial, users said they would require transactions using NFC-enabled phones to be at least as secure as when they pay with cards or other means, project leader Erlend Pedersen, a researcher at Telenor's research and innovation unit, tells CardLine Global sister publication Cards&Payments. That would be especially true with credit or debit card payments made with NFC mobile phones, he says. The NFC phones in last fall's mobile-ticketing trial came installed with a Mifare DESFire application from Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors, the first such test of DESFire in NFC phones. DESFire is a much more secure version of the Mifare protocol than Mifare Classic, which hundreds of millions transit cards use worldwide. It was not easy, however, to put a DESFire application into the phones because the secure chips embedded in the Samsung-brand NFC handsets did not support the application, Pederson says. Telenor had to develop a special DESFire application for the trial, with permission from NXP. That work could pay off later because more transit operators and other service providers might move to DESFire following recent hacks against Mifare Classic, he says. Those applications then could later find their way onto NFC phones Telenor sells to subscribers. Participants in the Tromso trial had another request. They told the survey takers they also wanted to be able to top up the value of their fare cards over the mobile network–presumably from the warmth of their homes. Telenor, one of the top 10 mobile operators worldwide in terms of subscriptions, also plans to hold a mobile-payment trial, probably using an application either from Visa Europe or MasterCard Worldwide.
