Swisscom has teamed up with vendors LEGIC and Kaba to provide a new mobile ecosystem that will use Near Field Communications (NFC) to provide access control as well as “time and attendance recording” for a wide number of payment and authorisation applications.
The largest Swiss mobile operator, Swisscom has been working on a new NFC services platform it calls “Tapit” (nothing to do with Australian NFC vendor Tapit Media – read: Three launches NFC marketing campaign in Stockholm subway carriage), which will enable different card issuers to come together and offer NFC services.
Kaba provides time and attendance recording, plus access control solutions to companies for access badges. By combining Kaba’s technology together with LEGIC Identsystems’ “IDConnect” product, smartphones that install Swisscom’s Tapit application can then be used in place of access badges, or for ticketing and office automation.
In the Tapit platform, LEGIC takes on the role of the Service Provider Trusted Service Manager (SP-TSM) that connects to Swisscom’s root TSM. LEGIC currently works with over 250 partners running numerous applications in over 100,000 installations.
Through the new partnership, LEGIC’s licence partners will be able to use the NFC-enabled smartphones using IDConnect.
Klaus U Klosa, Managing Director of LEGIC, said the partners want to “gradually introduce” the service into other countries, without specifying where or when.
For its part, Swisscom said it hopes to connect more application developers who can make use of Tapit and IDConnect in the future.
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