SPECIAL REPORT: Google Backs Host-Card Emulation, but Visa and MasterCard Could Hold Keys to Success

Nov 15 2013

NFC Times Special Report: In a move with potentially far-reaching implications for the NFC industry, Google has built support for host-card emulation into its new Android operating system, which could enable payments and other “secure” applications without a secure element.

Google has made host-card emulation part of Android 4.4, dubbed KitKat, which it released late last week with its Nexus 5 smartphone. The NFC-enabled device is the first to support the new operating system version, and is not believed to pack an embedded secure element. It would be the second Nexus device in a row, after the refreshed Nexus 7 tablet released last summer, not to carry an embedded chip.

Google touts the host-card emulation support in Android 4.4 as offering “secure NFC-based transactions” for payments, loyalty programs, access control, transit passes and other transactions in card-emulation mode, without the need to provision secure elements, such as SIM cards or embedded chips–though it can’t be used with the still-popular transit card technology, Mifare Classic, and likely not with the more secure Mifare DESFire or with such other proprietary contactless technologies as FeliCa.

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