The European Payments Council (EPC), the decision-making body of the European payments industry, and GlobalPlatform, the international specification body for smart card infrastructure, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that will see the two organisations coordinate their work on NFC with the aim of “promoting the availability of interoperable and neutral technology that will support a flexible and sustainable mobile payments marketplace.”

“The formal liaison relationship between the EPC and GlobalPlatform will ensure that the mobile contactless technical specifications and use cases of each organisation are compatible and adhere to predefined common requirements for mobile payments,” the two groups explain.

The first priority under the MoU will be to verify compliance between GlobalPlatform’s technology and the EPC’s existing use cases. Focus will also be placed on the capabilities of the GlobalPlatform Messaging Specification to standardise communication between the different players — such as banks, trusted service managers and mobile network operators — in the mobile proximity payments ecosystem. A second objective is to further analyse a possible cooperation on compliance and certification of the secure element that hosts mobile payment applications.

Earlier this month GlobalPlatform released a white paper outlining its vision for the implementation of NFC systems. EPC, meanwhile, has been working on a roadmap for mobile payments services such as SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) compliant contactless card proximity payments and remote payments.

“We clearly see the importance of working together with GlobalPlatform in the contactless domain in order to facilitate the implementation of our roadmap, foster interoperability and contribute to a cohesive ecosystem that leverages the SEPA infrastructure implemented by the European banking industry,” says Dag-Inge Flatraaker, chairman of the EPC M-Channel Group.

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