Consulting Smart confirmed speakers at NFC Payments Global Summit 2013

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Come and meet Consulting Smart at...

Steve Beecroft will be talking about another 'industry first' by Consulting Smart at the NFC Global Payments Summit 2013 on Thursday March 21st in London.

Steve led the development and implementation of the first NFC open wallet for American Express, in partnership with ISIS. Not only did this put American Express at the forefront of NFC development, 3 months after the pilot roll out, transactions are growing at a rate of 300% a month. To receive a copy of the presentation used by Steve on the day click here

Want to know more about possibilities and potential pitfalls of NFC wallets? Contact sbeecroft@consultingsmart.co.uk 

Consulting Smart Ltd provide specialist consultancy on the design and deployment of smart card and NFC technologies. For more information on how we can help your organisation realise the full benefits please see www.consultingsmart.co.uk or email us at info@consultingsmart.co.uk

Turkcell’s mobile payment reach 1m customers

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With the initial success of Turkcell’s mobile wallet, the company is talking about international alliances, says CIO Ilker Kuruöz. It already sells its software to other operators, he tells Alan Burkitt-Gray

Turkcell’s mobile payment reach 1m customers

The time to get innovations to market is one of the big headaches for chief information officers like Ilker Kuruöz of Turkcell. “We have a lot of issues around time to market— and the whole industry is struggling with the challenge of coming up with new services in order to generate new revenues.” Turkcell is taking on the challenge — and doing more, by selling some of its products to other telecoms operators. 


The whole industry, says Kuruöz, who has been chief information and communication officer at Turkcell since September 2009, is looking for new services to generate revenue as traditional sources — voice and text messages — go into long-term decline. “We are losing ground in voice and SMS. “We’re looking at areas such as mobile finance, and entertainment services such as IPTV and mobile TV, which provide valuable content to our customers on multiple screens.” Turkcell already has an active mobile payment system, a project called Turkcell Cüzdan, Turkish for “wallet”, in October 2012 with the aid of Garanti Bank and MasterCard. Cenk Bayrakdar, the CTO of Turkcell who introduced the service, has now left the group and is starting a venture capital company, says Kuruöz. “The project has been successful,” he adds. “It has been one of the most advanced mobile payment solutions. So far we have reached almost a million customers and 400,000 credit cards are linked to people’s mobile wallets.” 


Those figures indicate that the project appears to be running ahead of expectations. When Bayrakdar spoke to Global Telecoms Business in late 2012 he said: “We hope to activate 500,000 users by the end of the year and we hope to have two million active users by the end of 2013.” Now, Kuruöz says of Turkcell Cüzdan: “We are pushing hard for penetration and increasing transactions.” 
                        
Credit card link     
The company is promoting two separate solutions, he adds. “We have payment from the bill, which is a micro-payment solution, or if you attach your credit card to your mobile wallet, the limit is your credit card limit. If you have the limit, you can go to as much as you like.” And the system is being accepted, he says. “It’s getting more and more traction.” 
The idea of offering Turkcell Cüzdan as a managed service for other operators — suggested in the GTB interview by Bayrakdar — is still being considered, says Kuruöz. “We are still in discussions with other operators on the opportunities. And we are is talks with a couple of global players about extending the partnership to other countries.” 
What does the term “global players” mean? Credit card companies? Kuruöz smiles and says: “This is something we can’t say.” But the experience in Turkey has been good so far, with penetration increasing and the number of transactions increasing. “We have a couple of new features coming in that will increase the volume of transactions.” Again, he’s unwilling to share details at the moment. “It will be a surprise,” says Kuruöz. The wallet at the moment supports transactions based on NFC — near-field communications — which allows users to make a payment by tapping a terminal at the check-out. “Many cafés and small restaurants already support NFC transactions,” he explains. 
                            
Web transactions              
“But the biggest potential is in e-commerce,” says Kuruöz. By this he means web-based transactions where — in most parts of the world — people type in their credit card numbers to complete payment and buy books, tickets for travel or events, music, groceries or other goods and services. “You can type in your telephone number without giving your credit card number,” says Kuruöz. “It’s much more secure than using your credit card. Would you prefer giving your phone number to the e-commerce merchant or your credit card — and you give your phone number anyway, because they ask for your shipping address and phone number.” 
The website has to be enabled to accept a transaction via Turkcell phone number, he confirms. Amazon does not yet have a Turkish service, but the system is being used by local online shopping sites, he says. “Many of the leading e-commerce sites in Turkey support our payment solution.” 


Kuruöz takes a wide technical responsibility for the systems at Turkcell, including the OSS and BSS that are linked to e-payment services. His responsibilities at the company are “much wider than OSS”, he says. “I’m CIO and my responsibilities cover BSS, OSS, plus value added services, ERP and all IT.” And that includes services to the consumer such as the mobile wallet service. 


Turkcell — which operates in eight countries and territories in addition to Turkey — has its own billing solution, says Kuruöz, who used to be a divisional manager at Garanti Technology, part of Garanti bank, and a senior manager at Accenture. 
The mobile wallet is integrated with the charging system and the billing system, says Kuruöz. “Turkcell is one of the leading operators. We have 35 million subscribers in Turkey and 68 million in total. Around 38% are postpaid.” 


The company is “heavily investing in charging capabilities” and the focus at the moment is real-time charging. Most operators have separate charging systems, one of prepay customers and one for postpaid customers, “but we in the process of merging them into a single solution to do real-time charging”.               
              
Parallel running               
When Global Telecoms Business was interviewing Kuruöz at Mobile World Congress the company was running the old systems and the new merged system in parallel. “We have completed the project and we are doing the quality verification at the moment. To provide a superior customer experience we believe that giving real-time charging to our postpaid customers is critical — for them to get real-time notification of when their packages expire.” 
Other features that the system will provide will reduce the incident of bill shock when Turkcell’s customers are roaming, he adds. “If you don’t have real-time charging it is impossible to do this.” 


This is all becoming more and more important as the number of devices proliferates, he adds. 
“We all have phones and tablets and dongles, and it’s critical to share your package and keep control on spending,” he says. Turkcell is working with Ericsson on the charging solution, using its internal technology division. 


The parallel running is scheduled to run a few more months before Kuruöz is happy that it is operating satisfactorily and is confident enough in the system. “We are planning to cut over in the third quarter,” he says. “This will be a big transformation. ”It’s a challenge, he admitted at MWC. “We’ve been doing the parallel running for about a month.” So far there have been few problems, but the company has to migrate “more than 3,000” service options from the old systems to the new one. “We are having to re-test all scenarios.” The parallel running will highlight inconsistencies and there will, no doubt, have to be a few fixes to the software. “We are working hard. ”It’s a first, says Kuruöz. “Ericsson doesn’t have any such previous example” of a combined real-time charging system for prepaid and postpaid customers. “We are the first.” However, Turkcell has already started using some of the functions that the new system provides — such as notifications to customers. 
              
Integrated CRM 
It’s not the only advanced software development going on in Turkcell, adds Kuruöz. The team is also working on an advanced customer relationship management system to integrate fixed and mobile services. “We are trying to build a solution to integrate mobile and fixed customers, from lead generation to order fulfilment.” It’s already being tested by using Turkcell’s own staff. “We are creating mobility for our teams in the field,” says Kuruöz. “We are giving tablets to our sales executives and to our corporate sales team. This is a good example of how to use mobile technology.” Having completed this first step, “we are getting feedback from the field”, says Kuruöz. This is an internal project, he adds, using Turkcell Technology’s 750 engineers, developing OSS/BSS solutions as well as services and products. But Turkcell does sell its technology to other operators, he adds — naming Zain and TeliaSonera as customers for some of its products. 

For more information please see the original article by Alan Burkitt-Gray dated 18 March 2013  http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com/Article/3174379/Regions/25187/Turkcells-mobile-payment-system-reaches-1m-customers-says-CIO-Ilker-Kuruz.html

Have you read this article and now need more information about our services then please click www.consultingsmart.co.uk or contact the author sbeecroft@consultingsmart.co.uk.

Consulting Smart Ltd provide specialist consultancy on the design and deployment of smart card and NFC technologies. For more information on how we can help your organisation realise the full benefits please see www.consultingsmart.co.uk or email us at info@consultingsmart.co.uk.

Is Nice the Smartest City in the World? - Part Two

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This is the concluding part of our research into the innovative Near Field Communications programme implemented in the French city of Nice. To read the first part published 6th July 2010 please click here

Airport

Technically this is not part of the Cityzi scheme but it is possible for a CAP member to use the same NFC enabled mobile phone for both schemes.

In the very first trial of NFC technology in air travel anywhere in the world, frequent flyers with Air France using the Nice-Paris Orly domestic route and Members of Nice Airport's passenger programme Club Airport Premier (CAP) took part in a pilot to validate the use the technology for paperless ticket and boarding pass.

The “Pass and Fly” pilot, as it was known, provided more accurate and faster MI whilst improving and speeding up the customer experience. It also required less manual effort and thus has the potential to deliver savings and efficiency gains for the airline and the airport operator.

This innovative pilot project that began in April 2009 and concluded in October 2009, is a collaboration between Nice Côte d'Azur Airport and Air France, who have partnered with IER, the supplier of the NFC enabled sticker for a similar pilot by Air New Zealand, and Amadeus. Both Nice Côte d'Azur Airport and Air France have since adopted the technology and offer it as a core service.

IER built NFC kiosks readers are integrated with the airport's infrastructure and interfaced with Air France's passenger management system.

Amadeus supply the software for the mobile phones, departure control system and airport readers, which captures and displays information relevant to the customers progress through the departure process.

Air France have issued Nokia 6212 handsets to some CAP members and NFC stickers to others. The stickers provide a non NFC mobile phone with NFC capability and thus allow the customer to join the programme and enjoy the benefits of the new service.

Once registered for the service, CAP members with their “Pass and Fly” enabled mobile phone check in through either the internet, mobile phone, self-service channel at the airport. Once checked in the customer swipes their NFC enabled mobile phone across a reader to download the electronic IATA compatible boarding pass.

Then the customer is fast tracked through security checks control by waving the mobile phone across the NFC reader which links to the Airlines passenger information and displays the boarding pass to the security staff without the need for the customer to display their mobile phone screen.. In fact the mobile phone does not even need to be switched on. The same process is followed for boarding where a voucher is printed with seat details.

As an additional functionality the CAP members also accrue loyalty points via the use of the NFC mobile phone during this process which the Airline is using to incentivise customers to drive take-up.

If the Airline operated a “free sea\ting” policy or equipped the cabin crew with powered hand held readers, this would result in a completely paperless journey.

Feedback from customers has been very positive with the key benefits being speed of transit through the airport, easy to use, convenient not to have to handle paper, and elimination of delays due to lost / misplaced tickets / boarding cards.

For the Airline, they have more satisfied customers, and reduce costs. Whilst the airport can keep queues to a minimum which also reduces security and health and safety risks. .

Compared the mobile boarding pass solution that uses 2-D barcodes as used in New Zealand and elsewhere, NFC is more efficient in terms of speed of transaction and as the phone does not require power it less prone to errors and delays. However, in this deployment, it does not provide a completely paperless process yet.

Smart Muse, Access to Information

The Smart Muse proof of concept project provides a number of NFC enabled services to patrons of the museum the best example is in the Centre Pompidou, an art museum in Paris, and “Walking Tours” of the Old City of Nice. However Nice have already made it clear that they fully intend to rollout the solution to their own museums as soon as they have positive feedback from their own project along with that from the one at the Centre Pompidou.

Visitors to the museum are provided, free of charge, with an NFC Wave-Me™- enabled handset using software from Inside Contactless, which is hosted by ConnecThings, a who specialise in the provision of contextualized location and time based content management systems (CMS),

The handset, supplied by Sagem, is then used to gain access to information about a particular exhibit simply by holding it close to an NFC tag in a poster or label situated adjacent to the exhibit itself. The smart tag has a Unique Identifier (UID) this is read by the handset and then communicated to the CMS over a wireless connection. The information about that exhibit is then sent back to visitor via the handset’s screen in a language of their choice.

The Hand set is a two way communication device and so can also be used to send visitor feedback to the Curators and museum manager about a exhibits or the visitors general experience.

To get benefit beyond the actual visit to the museum the visitor can register interest in a particular artist or exhibit and receive further information, videos etc via e-mail or even their Facebook page.

The scheme at the Centre Pompidou has received c450€ funding from France's Ministry of Economy, Industry and Employment which equates to around 30 percent of the total development and deployment cost of more than 1.5M€. The remainder will be funded by the consortium partners who are essentially donating their expertise, software and hardware. It is not clear if the implementation in Nice will receive similar funding.

Cultural Events – Information Dissemination

Local residents and visitors to the Old City of Nice are able to obtain information about local events, cultural and activities by presenting their NFC enabled mobile phone to the Cityzi branded signposts with NFC chips. The vast majority of these signposts are part of the walking tour scheme and so this is an effective use of existing infrastructure.

Retailers

As part of the payment application a number of retailers including Carrefour, E.Leclerc Intermarché, and several town-center merchants have signed up for the scheme to accept payment by NFC device

Jewelry retailer Cléor are piloting an innovative inventory tracking window, using RFID. Each item has an RFID tag and there are proximity readers on the window access area, when an item passes through this area it is added or removed from the store’s inventory as appropriate. This speeds up stock management and can also trigger the ordering of new stock. By logging the date and time an item is added or removed from the window display it is also seen as a deterrent to staff theft.

There are also other applications being planned like the Real time inventory management, display, anti theft system, location, and customer loyalty for textile and clothing shops, and the RFID logistic chains for meat to allow real time traceability, already being used across Europe by the larger supermarkets.

University

The Nice Future Campus project allows c300 students at the Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis campus to use NFC-enabled phones for a variety of services both on and off campus.

This is a fairly comprehensive scheme with a budget of c2M€ involving 7 key supplier partners delivering several applications including payment, transport, access control, student life (ticketing) and targeted promotional offers

Over a 2 year period the scheme has introduced 3 different Mobile handsets and 4 NFC stickers to enable non NFC mobile phones 3 NFC devices

Employee ID & Access

Businesses in Nice are able to use the infrastructure that the City is putting in place, and such application way is for staff ID and access. The Gemalto provided MoBEMo contactless badge allows employees to use their own NFC enabled phone for Access Control and to make cafeteria payments. Cassis International is developing a system allowing NFC phone holders to access tickets and coupons via a Web-based server.

Home Help Time & attendance & Payment

This is a mobile home-help payment system which replaces paper cheques., RFID tags in name badges communicate with the mobile devices to log in hours and claim payments

The Nice scheme has been described as the "dress rehearsal" for

a nationwide NFC rollout in 2011.

Have you read this article and now need more information on smartcard, mobile or NFC technologies? If so click www.consultingsmart.co.uk or contact the author sbeecroft@consultingsmart.co.uk

Consulting Smart Ltd provide specialist consultancy on the design and deployment of smart card and NFC technologies. For more information on how we can help your organisation realise the full benefits please seewww.consultingsmart.co.ukor email us atinfo@consultingsmart.co.uk

Is Nice the Smartest City in the World? - Part One

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By Steve Beecroft

Smart Technologies Consultant

Consulting Smart Ltd

The French city of Nice, which sits overlooking the tranquil waters of the Mediterranean Sea, was for many years an Italian dominion and became part of France in 1860. France’s fifth largest city Nice is widely believed to be one of the oldest human settlements in the world, so leading from the front and embracing change is embedded deep in the soul of the city.

This background have created a city that seeks continuous development and improvement. So the emergence of a new and innovative technology that delivers efficiencies for the local administration or provide a richer experience for citizens and visitors is almost always explored. Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) technologies are providing the city of Nice the opportunity to again look at improving the lives of the people that live and visit the city. These technologies include Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and contactless Integrated Circuit (IC) chips, like those used in contactless payment cards. When coupled with a Human Interface Device (HID) such as a smart card or mobile phone, both of which are common place in a modern thriving environment, thee technologies can provide a large number of benefits to service providers and service users.

Now Nice is fast gaining a reputation of being a leader in the adoption of new technologies and could well be renamed NFC City such is its appetite to exploit the 360̊ benefits of the technology.

Amongst the Smart Technologies industry London is widely acclaimed the title holder for most technically advanced European city, however Nice is now fast catching up. The recent lull in activity in London and the UK’s seemingly reluctance to fully embrace NFC, and the increased momentum that technology is experiencing, has seen Nice overtake London. Well that is the view of many industry consultants, mostly French consultants it has to be said. Nonetheless they may well be right

Let’s explore some of the recent smart card, mobile and NFC technologies that have been deployed in and around.

Nice, Mobile Contactless City, The Multi- application Scheme

Private sector suppliers Gemalto, a world leader in digital security, Crédit Mutuel-CIC and NRJ Mobile have joined forces to offer contactless mobile payment services as part of the “Nice, mobile contactless city” project. Backed by the French government this project builds on the success for similar contactless payment rollouts in both Caen and Strasburg.

The scheme also includes a number of service providers including local transport in the form of busses and trams, banks, museums, restaurants, supermarkets and local retailers. Information dissemination services will also be available at the museum and university campus via smart posters.

Crédit Mutuel-CIC, the first French bank to launch a mobile banking service, are acting as the payment services provider, NRJ Mobile supplying the NFC enabled mobile phones and telecommunications company Orange will provide mobile services. This allows users to pay for goods and services using contactless, tap n’ go, technology in total confidence, thanks to the dedicated Trusted Services Management module that Gemalto are providing Crédit Mutuel-CIC with.

The scheme will be part of the newly created Cityzi brand name. It is based on an open platform and is governed by a set or technical specifications enabling easy participation for local service providers and retailers. Participants in the scheme can publicise the level of their involvement with a full set of marketing material including a set of Cityzi logos as follows:-

Four logos are available in all:

A logo which shows a service or a contactless mobile device is compatible with AFSCM specifications.

A 'ici Cityzi' ('Cityzi here') logo displayed prominently — in doorways and on cashtills, in the same way as card acceptance logos — in all places where Cityzi services can be used.

A target mark, to show consumers where to hold their device when interacting with a Cityzi service via a poster, billboard or other NFC-enabled object.

An icon displayed on the consumer's mobile device, allowing quick access to the list of Cityzi applications stored on the handset

The initiative is being led by Christian Estrosi, Nice City Council’s, deputy mayor, and is designed to interface with Trusted Service Partner platforms in an open environment. It also complies with the latest European Payment Council (EPC) GSMA standards and will enable the secure, over the air communications..

Whilst the Caen and Strasburg initiatives precede the Nice project they are both smart card schemes so this makes the carefully planned and well phase implemented Nice NFC project the first of its type in Europe and almost certainly the largest.

Public Transport

Veolia, the public transport operator for the Nice Côte-d'Azur urban area, and ConnecThings, location based information provider, have partnered to transform the travel experience of commuters, locals and visitors.

Again some central government funding has been made available for the development abd delivery of Veolia’s BPass+ facility which offer a method of storing and renewing a transport ticketing on an NFC phone.

Initially c3,000 residents will be able to pay for tram and bus tickets using NFC phones or via a 2D barcode.

In the second phase of this project du for launch in Summer 2010 ConnecThings are equipping around 1,500 bus and tram stops with NFC technology, allowing transport users to download travel information direct to their NFC enabled mobile phone

Cycle Rides / Walking tours

Nice is said to be the first city in the world where NFC technology will be deployed within a city area for tourist information.

An application launched earlier this year, the NFC Tour Guide of the old city centre, allows visitors to the old city to borrow one of 100 Sagem phones from tourist counters or city offices. Those that already own an NFC enabled mobile are also able to access the service via that handset Alternatively

The city have installed RFID tags with InsideContactless NFC chips to Cityzi branded signposts or walls near a number of attractions, such as museums and galleries. Tourists taking the walking tour of the old city access information about each site they visit based on the tags they wave the phones next to.

It works by the mobile phone detecting the NFC tag, and then downloads the site relevant information from the InsideContactless software running on a server, via the NFC tag. that information at each site also recommends the next site the visitor should visit and provides directions. This helps the visitor to get the most from the walking tour and promotes the old city.

There is even a facility for the visitor to leave feedback on the site or the walking tour in that form of text comments or via the old city’s Facebook site.

To generate some revenue and help fund the maintenance and replacement of the handsets, there is the opportunity for local businesses to advertise their services. By restricting the advertising to local businesses Nice is protecting its investment in regeneration and ensuring the sustainability of the scheme.

Parking

Smart Park, from Monext and VinciPark, provide a richer and more convenient parking experience by implementing cashless and contactless payment, season ticket / membership management, loyalty, GPS functionality and other value added services.

Part Two to follow with NFC developments in Air Travel, Culture, Retail, University and more

Consulting Smart Ltd provide specialist consultancy on the design and deployment of smart card and NFC technologies. For more information on how we can help your organisation realise the full benefits please see www.consultingsmart.co.uk or email us at info@consultingsmart.co.uk

A Plan to Kill the NYC MetroCard with Tap-and-Go Payment

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By Andrew Grossman of The Wall Street Journal

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will take a step Monday toward replacing the MetroCard with a new, tap-and-go payment system. The agency, along with MasterCard, NJ Transit and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, will begin testing a system that would let bus and subway riders tap a device on a reader instead of swiping a card, much as riders in London,Washington, D.C. and Hong Kong have been doing for years. Second Avenue Sagas and AM New York have details about what the pilot, which is being offered on some bus lines and the Lexington Avenue subway.

But what’s really important here is the end goal: replacing the MetroCard by 2014. That has been a pet project of MTA Chief Executive Jay Walder, who helped implement London’s Oyster Card, which works as an all-purpose transit card. Walder repeatedly points to the 15 cents per dollar that it costs the MTA to collect fares, and says a tap-and-go card, which auto-refills from users’ bank or credit card accounts, could reduce that expense. (Walder is fond of asking people what other technology in their pocket or in their homes dates to the 1980s, which is when the MetroCard was developed.)

Walder and other backers of a contactless payment system point to numerous advantages that could come from the new devices. Buses would move faster, since riders wouldn’t have to wait for a machine to read and return their cards. Frequent riders could link the cards directly to their credit cards and refill them online, eliminating the need for frequent use of vending machines (though a version of auto-refill already exists). The MTA wouldn’t need to spend as much money maintaining magnetic card readers. And it could be integrated — as the pilot will be — with NJ Transit and the Port Authority, which runs PATH trains, meaning riders would only need one card to get around the region.

Walder has said the new cards would provide both better service for customers and save money for the MTA. But, as Second Avenue Sagas points out, the authority still has a long way to go before tap-and-go payment gets rolled out to all the area’s 468 subway stations, more 4,000-plus buses and the New Jersey commuter rail network:

“How will a program that requires online registration scale across a system of that averages five million riders a day? What will happen to riders who don’t have credit cards or don’t want to supply the MTA with their credit card info? And more importantly, will a credit card touch-and-go system be the final solution for a MetroCard replacement?”

Consulting Smart Ltd provide specialist consultancy on the design and deployment of smart card and NFC technologies. For more information on how we can help your organisation realise the full benefits please see www.consultingsmart.co.uk or email us at info@consultingsmart.co.uk