Japan’s only international payment brand JCB Co., Ltd. (“JCB”) has launched the “JCBDC” (JCB Digital Currency) Phase 2 pilot project with IDEMIA, a global leader in identity technologies, and the world’s leading fintech company Soft Space Sdn Bhd. (“Soft Space”).
In Phase 1 of the JCBDC project, JCB, IDEMIA, and Soft Space developed a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) payment solution, enabling merchants to accept CBDC without the need to modify their POS (point of sale) terminals and payment cards. This solution was successfully piloted in Tokyo in 2023, which has enabled JCB, IDEMIA, and Soft Space to proceed to the next phase of the project.
In Phase 2 of the JCBCD project, customers will be able to transfer CBDC funds from one person to another person using their cards and mobile phones even without Internet connectivity. These offline P2P (peer-to-peer) fund transfers can either be done from one card to another with a mobile NFC device as an intermediary, or from one mobile NFC device to another mobile NFC device directly. This project is compliant with the open WLA (White Label Alliance at https://wla-payment.org/) payment standard and using secure elements to ensure optimal security.
In one option, consumers can send CBDC funds offline by tapping one person’s card to another person’s mobile NFC device. Then another person can tap their card to their mobile NFC phone to receive CBDC funds. Such a stored-value card (SVC) is used to securely store and transfer offline CBDC funds, thus acting as a digital version of cash in lieu of paper banknotes.
Another option for consumers is to transfer CBDC funds offline by tapping their mobile NFC device to another person’s mobile NFC device. Both payer’s and payee’s mobile NFC devices operate off the network when CBDC funds are sent and received.
For this project, IDEMIA and Soft Space provided the tokenization back-end server, mobile wallet application, card application and SoftPOS solution, as well as all necessary APIs and SDKs for system and application integration purposes. The project uses IDEMIA’s protocol, the industry standard for Offline CBDC Payments, and leverages on Soft Space’s expertise in contactless payments.
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