Over the last few years, there has been a tremendous growth in the usage of NFC PVC cards. Major transportation networks have adopted a technology that allows commuters to just tap reusable, contactless stored value cards to pay for their fares. Examples of these are London’s Oyster and Hong Kong’s Octopus cards, which may be used to pay for rides on trains, buses, taxis, ferries, trams, and others. Now you may be wondering what these NFC cards are.
First of all, let’s define what NFC is. NFC stands for Near Field Communication, which is a contactless, wireless technology allowing two NFC-enabled devices to transfer and receive data such as texts or numbers. NFC cards, as the name suggests, refer to any form of cards (credit, debit, business, or stored value cards) that are made of PVC plastic that’s known for being flexible, durable, and versatile.
NFC PVC cards are integrated with NFC chips—tiny microchips that contain a wee bit amount of memory and whatever technology is necessary to allow it to communicate. There are tiny antennas in the chips that allow for wireless and contactless communication with another NFC-capable device over a short distance of about 3-4 centimeters. The NFC chip can determine how much funds are stored in a transport card, for example.
That is not to say that the type of information that can be stored in the chips is limited. Far from it, actually, since NFC cards may be encoded with web addresses and telephone numbers, as is the case with NFC business cards. A universal way of storing information in the chips is used, which means any NFC-capable device can read and understand the information and determine what type of data it is. You don’t need a special application or device to interpret different types of data stored in the chips.
Even the security of NFC PVC cards is something amazing. There are secure channels that oversee the transmission of encrypted data from one NFC-capable device or reader to another. That’s actually one of the reasons why the cards are now considered a more secure alternative to QR codes.
About the Author:
NFC Tagify is one of the leading NFC Products and services providers in UK. NFC Tagify offers contactless nfc tags, pvc business cards, ntag stickers, chips, anti-metal/on metal and a number of customised nfc products. NFC Tagify manufactures products to comply with NFC forum specifications. NFC Tagify also offers NFC tag encoding in bulk.
