ABnote offers NFC bridging technology at CARTES 2013

A showcase product this year is the OTI WAVE, a Secure Element-equipped bridging technology which will allow apps such as payment, loyalty and, indeed, any other type of card (such as hotel room electronic door keys) to be added to customers’ smart phones ahead of the more widespread take-up of NFC-enabled devices.

In fact, ABNote has offered merchants a Trusted Service Manager/Platform (TSM/TSP) capability for the last three years, he adds, and the OTI WAVE has itself evolved from a sleeve or case into a plug-in device which gets away from rapidly evolving phone form factors.

Merchants can therefore go to market with a scalable approach for any smartphone. And once a merchant has made a card available via the TSM, all customers have to do is plug in the OTI WAVE, register, download an app and sign in. In the hotel trade, for example, this means that a loyalty customer can upon arrival already have an electronic key installed in his or her phone. The OTI WAVE can also be used to install a wide variety of other apps such as those for RFID-based transit payment and student ID. It allows merchants to more tightly control access to customers while allowing individuals greater control over the electronic cards carried on their own phones, Ellis says.