Paytec to enable mobile payments using colour-coded light signals

Italian payments solutions provider Payment Technologies (Paytec) is to build a new mobile payment technology into its vending machines that will let consumers make contactless payments using colour-coded light signals and tokenisation. The technology has been developed by digital payment network Dinube.

Paytec logo“Opto enables customers to complete contactless payments from any smartphone without the need for NFC,” Dinube says. “Opto is a contactless technology which transmits encrypted data via colour-encoded light signals of different frequencies to an optical reader installed in the vending machine.

“Unlike NFC, Opto uses a native feature common to all smartphones — light from the mobile screen. By generating a dynamic token in the form of color-encoded light, vending operators are able to provide their customers with a secure, private and simplified purchasing solution, available on all smartphones.”

“The release of this technology has already sparked interest from a number of vending operators from across Europe who seek a secure, digital payment solution that works universally on any smartphone,” the company adds.

Advantages

“Opto enables tokenisation via colour-encoded light, instead of NFC,” Dinube CEO Jonathan Hayes told NFC World. “The initial application is for the vending sector. However, by no means is it limited to vending, or even payments, for that matter.

“For example, it is a highly secure method to enable access control to certain environments. Opto has two key advantages over NFC — first, it is universally available on any smartphone since it uses light, which all smartphone screens have. In addition, it offers a new level of security.

“NFC broadcasts information, albeit at short range, which in certain instances can compromise security. Light signals cannot be captured in the same way as light is naturally dispersed by ambient light surrounding it.”

The solution is based on “hard science” developed in coordination with a team of scientists from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and the i2Cat innovation centre in Barcelona.

“Digital payments are here to stay and Opto is the perfect enabler to deploy the power of digital in day-to-day vending,” says Paytec CEO Gianmarco Broggini. “Opto is simple to use, easy to install, user-friendly and works with any type and model of vending machine and payment equipment.”

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