Proximity marketing and m-payment software
application provider Proxama has had an exciting start to the year
– it has signed major deals with mobile network operator Orange as
well as with ARM and MasterCard.
In the next few weeks, Proxama is going to
make two other major announcements, CEO Neil Garner has told
Electronic Payments International.
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“One big announcement we are hoping to make
imminently is with a very large financial services company for
which we are building their mobile wallet capability. And we are
also aiming to make another announcement, in the near future,
around some of the things we are doing to do with a major mobile
phone manufacturer,” Garner told Electronic Payments
International.
Proxama has already come out with big scale
deals, including a consumer-facing NFC marketing campaign that
Orange is undertaking in 114 stores of food retailer EAT.
Another big deal the company has showcased at
the recent Mobile World Congress is its collaboration with ARM to
launch “an ultra-secure” mobile payment system.
Garner was unable to reveal more information,
but said that NFC would be a standard feature on handsets in
2012.
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By GlobalData“Mobile World Congress was very busy – and I
think the one thing that stood out this time was that every
manufacturer that was there had NFC phones on their stands. Some
had NFC as an option. Not all models had NFC, but there were
handsets with NFC capability,” he said.
“Ultimately, it depends on the network
operator to drive NFC forward and push it forward.”
“I think NFC will just be a standard feature
on the handsets. This will then allow the services payments and the
marketing to grow over time. But, ultimately retailers are not
going to update their terminals unless they have a very good reason
or are forced to or it is time for renewal,” he added.
At Mobile World Congress, Proxama unveiled the
new technology that would allow transactions to be initiated from a
merchant’s website. Customers can authorise payments with a
passcode – and ARM’s trusted execution environment TrustZone is
used. This method is just as secure as using a card at the point of
sale, according to Garner. MasterCard is also a partner in the
deal.
“We work closely with ARM to create the
applications that run within their trusted execution server. These
can be integrated within mobile wallets,” Garner said.
TrustZone will be integrated into the core
processor of a smartphone which thus builds a what Proxama calls a
“walled-garden” which can operate independently of the operating
system of a phone.
Proxama’s role in this is that its
Wallet solution uses a code that is inaugurated inside this “walled
garden”. This protects the user’s passcode entry and limits it to
the hardware of the mobile handset.
Proximity marketing with
Orange
Just before the Mobile World Congress, Proxama
announced that it was going to license its Touchpoint NFC marketing
platform to Orange. Orange is now using Proxama’s platform for its
first large-scale consumer-facing NFC marketing campaign, which is
taking place in 114 EAT stores in the UK since the end of
February.
The service only works with NFC-enabled
phones, which require the Quick Tap Treats app.
Consumers who have this app and an appropriate
phone can hold their phones in front of NFC tags in in-store
posters. That way, customers take part in a spin the wheel type of
promotion for three times, and after the third spin, the customer
can choose a treat, such as coffee, sandwich or cake.
For merchants, the Touchpoint platform
provides real-time analytics of campaigns, so they can measure
success.
Logically, such a campaign promotes the use of
NFC and mobile payments because people are incentivised to get a
‘treat’.
But although wallet-related deals and
partnerships and announcements have accelerated since the beginning
of the year, there are very little – hardly any – loyalty
promotions on wallets. Why?
“You can decouple the two,” says Garner. “You
can do coupons and loyalty without having to be part of a secure
wallet. That is what we have done with Orange. Our application runs
on their NFC phones. That is different to the core payment wallet
that would enable transactions. The two can be linked. But the
loyalty element of it – the coupon offers, engagement, marketing
etc – can all be done independently.”
