The Internet of Things may be ripe for development, but the process of adding secure payments to
One of the newest approaches comes from a partnership between semiconductor maker STMicroelectronics, mobile payment technology firm Giesecke & Devrient and wearable payments provider FitPay. The group has produced a ready-to-use payment solution that will support tokenized payments from Visa or Mastercard.
Combining hardware from ST, a secure operating system from G&D and payment application management software from FitPay, the solution contains a Near Field Communication booster supporting contactless payments via a tiny antenna enabling payments triggered by gestures and Bluetooth, with a USB battery charger and an energy-saving microcontroller, the companies said in a Jan. 5 press release.
The solution enables users to load multiple payment cards from various banks and payment networks onto IoT devices and wearables, all working separately from the device’s core operating system, according to the press release.
“The market has been waiting for a turnkey reference design that greatly simplifies the way device OEMs interact with the payment ecosystem and this effort fits the bill,” said Laurent Degauque, a STMicroelectronics marketing director, in the release.
“As the market for payment-enabled wearables grows, manufacturers need easy ways to bring secure transactions and connectivity to their devices, and the solution ST and its partners are offering is a critical step in bringing contactless Visa payments to a whole new generation of IoT devices,” added Avin Arumugam, Visa’s senior vice president, IoT.
Mastercard predicts the partnership will help drive its own innovations forward. “STMicroelectronics and its partners have created an intelligent and powerful solution to mobile-payment challenges—that leverages our tokenization service—to deliver secure and trusted payments-enabled devices,” said Kiki Del Valle, Mastercard’s senior vice president of Commerce for Every Device, in the release.
