MIFARE

KDDI selects MIFARE DESFire for au Wallet Loyalty Program 25. November 2014

KDDI, a major Japanese mobile operator, has selected NXP´s secure MIFARE DESFire EV1 for their loyalty program in the new “au WALLET” prepaid card. The au WALLET service includes a loyalty program where points based on the amount purchased via the card and monthly mobile bill can be earned. Since the launch in May 2014, five million “au” network subscribers have applied for the au WALLET card.

Users of au WALLET can also earn up to 3,000 points (equivalent to 3,000 JPY) by playing the game “au WALLET Welcome Gacha!” at dedicated au shops. Users can experience this game by tapping their au WALLET cards to the near field communication (NFC) reader of a dedicated terminal. Those earned points can be used to replenish the au WALLET balance and online shopping as well as for purchasing mobile phones and mobile bill payment. An au WALLET application for smartphones and a dedicated website also allows users to charge their au WALLET cards, check remaining au WALLET balance and review loyalty points. The card holders can achieve extra points at more than 50 different retail shops, restaurants and entertainment venues.

Customers of KDDI can conveniently interact with their au WALLET cards through their NFC-enabled smartphones as MIFARE DESFire is NFC Forum Type 4 Tag compatible. MIFARE DESFire is based on open global standards for both air interface as well as cryptographic methods such as Triple DES and AES. It is compliant to ISO / IEC 14443 part 1, 2, 3 and 4 (Type A) and uses optional ISO / IEC 7816-4 commands. MIFARE DESFire is widely available from NXP and licensed partners for use on secure elements in mobile phones such as SIM cards and embedded secure elements. Full mobile support is provided by the MIFARE4Mobile™ Industry Group, which has standardized a single, interoperable programming interface to remotely provision and manage MIFARE-based services in NFC mobile devices, from over-the-air installation to end-user interaction via the user interface of the mobile phone.