5/5/11
By Sophie Baker
The European Payments Council (EPC) has launched a public consultation on its Mobile Contactless SEPA Card Payments Interoperability Implementation Guidelines.
The EPC, which represents the European banking industry when it comes to payments, is calling on the industry to provide feedback by 17 June 2011. The final guidelines are scheduled for publication in October 2011.
The Guidelines outline today’s mobile contactless payments ecosystem and the stakeholders involved, with the aim of providing a clear understanding of the technology that is available and its deployment within the market. The document will deliver an enhanced level of clarity, which will ensure adherence to an adequate level of security measures and appropriate governance by payment service providers.
The document will enable the development and implementation of mobile solutions quicker, the EPC said – achieving this by promoting the use of open standards; providing transparency to market participants; stating the position and responsibilities of the EPC in relation to other industry bodies; and defining the adequate level of security for the whole mobile contactless payment value chain.
“The EPC Mobile Contactless SEPA Card Payments Interoperability Implementation Guidelines are the EPC’s next step in making SEPA mobile contactless payments a reality,” commented EPC chair Gerard Hartsink. “The EPC invites stakeholders to participate in the consultation process and to provide feedback on these guidelines by 17 June 2011.”
The diverse service models and processes involved in the provisioning and the lifecycle management of a mobile contactless payment application is outlined in the guidelines, and it outlines the technical infrastructure as well as the essential security requirements for each component within this architecture.
Te document also acknowledges the different aspects of processing a mobile contactless SEPA card payment as transaction flows, cardholder verification methods and risk management.
The EPC will later release implementation guidelines for mobile remote payments.
The documentation is available on the EPC website.
