The ABCs of HCE

ABC of HCEThis 12-page white paper produced by SimplyTapp provides an in-depth introduction to host card emulation (HCE) and its implications for the payments industry.

It begins by explaining how HCE functions by creating a secure communication channel between an NFC terminal and remotely hosted payment credentials. It then defines the key terms and concepts associated with HCE technology, including NFC, magnetic secure transmission (MST), Bluetooth low energy (BLE), secure element (SE), cloud-based payments (CBP) and virtual secure element (VSE).

The paper focuses in particular on the differences between SE-based and VSE-based contactless technologies and on the use of HCE in cloud-based payments before identifying real-world applications for the technology in the retail, transit, ticketing and hospitality sectors. It also addresses some of the most commonly held misconceptions about HCE, tokenization, connectivity and implementation at point-of-sale.

The paper concludes by evaluating the potential for HCE to change the payments ecosystem and encourage increasing adoption of mobile payments.

This paper has been produced and sponsored by SimplyTapp and has been approved by the NFC World+ editorial team.

How to access this report

This 12-page document is available free of charge to NFC World+ Knowledge Centre members (PDF format, 401KB).

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This item is part of NFC World.