NFC TIMES Exclusive – NFC-based student ID cards provisioned to Apple Wallet beginning this fall won’t include the open-loop debit payments that are often part of plastic student ID cards, NFC Times has learned.
Both Apple and U.S.-based campus credential technology provider Blackboard have said the mobile NFC student ID credentials will work for closed-loop transactions at campus dining, laundry, and vending facilities, as well as at certain off-campus vendors that accept closed-loop payments from student accounts. Plastic student IDs store student ID numbers and payment card PANs on two separate magnetic stripes, in accordance with PCI DSS requirements, while the digital versions stored in Apple Wallet won’t include open-loop, tokenized PANs at all connected with campus ID cards, said Blackboard.
“For the same regulatory-compliance reasons, open-loop PANs should not be stored or managed in a Blackboard Transact environment and will not be provisioned to Wallet as part of our Blackboard mobile credential offering,” a Blackboard spokesperson told NFC Times. But open-loop payments are included on student IDs at some universities and students with such open-loop cards may be able to add those to Apple Pay as separate credentials from their student IDs.
