nRF52840 HCE as a payment card

[SRJCracker]

Hello, I have seen and heard of nrf52 alot that it can be used as payment card by using HCE technique. Can anyone please shed some light on it ? I want to know the way we can implement a payment card setup on real POS terminal

[bjorn-spockeli]

We're showing a contactless payment demo at CES made by a third-party. It uses an external secure element without NFC capabilities (i.e. an external IC that is either EMV or Union Pay certified). This secure external element contains the payment applets and handles the payment security, while the NFC communication is provided by the nRF52 device.

This approach allows the use of secure elements without a NFC interface as well as allowing the use of NFC in the rest of the application running on the nRF52, like touch to pair functionality for instance.

Best regards

Bjørn

[Jefferson]

Has this demo been released as a real product?  Are there any problems with certification using nRF52 NFC and an external secure element?

[bjorn-spockeli]

Hi Jefferson, 

I am afraid that I do not know if the third party commercialized their demonstration or not. The certification was mainly for the secure element and not the nRF52, so this should not be ab issue as long as you use a secure element that is approved by the payment providers.