Ensuring a Smooth “Tap & Go” Experience

New COMPRION TraceCase helps to solve communication failures in contactless payments

Cafe-queue_750x420-2017-08-08-300x168 Ensuring a Smooth “Tap & Go” ExperienceIn all areas where NFC is applied, especially in contactless payments, failure in communication can lead to bad user acceptance. Ralph Kamp, Product Manager for NFC test solutions at COMPRION explicates: “Probably all of us have experienced this before: You are lining up at the checkout of your favorite coffee shop, wanting to pay your morning coffee quickly with a contactless card or smartphone. For whatever reason, tap & go doesn’t work. The line is getting longer and longer, the faces of the people behind you are getting grumpier, until finally, you must run to the next ATM to get some cash. This is bad for you, bad for the other customers, bad for the coffee shop – and for the payment provider – bad for everyone.”

Especially payment providers have a strong interest in eliminating contactless communication problems. The new TraceCase – a small, mobile trace tool that can be easily controlled by smartphone –  traces the interaction between two NFC devices such as POS terminals and NFC-enabled smartphone or contactless card. “Very often, the reason for failure lies in the interference or distortion of electrical signals. These can be easily identified by our new field tracer”, explains Kamp.

Now, payment providers can equip a whole team of field testers with the cost-effective tracer. “As setup and handling of the device are very easy, only a short training is required”, so Kamp. The tracer is very inconspicuous so that contactless transactions can be monitored during daily business – without unsettling vendors or customers. “However, the tracer doesn’t collect user-sensitive banking data”, promises Kamp.

The collected data is sent from the smartphone to the lab for troubleshooting. Using the powerful TraceCase Viewer software, the engineer can analyze and resolve the communication problems. As TraceCase is the only tracer of its kind worldwide that collects analog signals, errors on all levels can be easily found. TraceCase is immediately available.

About COMPRION
COMPRION is the worldwide leading manufacturer of test solutions for smart card interfaces, terminals, and smart cards. Covering contact-based and contactless technologies, COMPRION provides their expertise to multiple industries, especially telecommunications, payments, and M2M. Our involvement in several standardization and certification bodies enables us to integrate the latest standards and requirements into our high-quality products. As COMPRION test systems are renowned for the most accurate measurement capabilities, the company serves all top mobile phone, terminal, card and chipset manufacturers as well as mobile network operators and test houses. COMPRION also acts as technological consultant supporting many key players in the market.

Press Contact
Kathleen Knievel
Corporate Marketing Manager

Tel:        +49 5251 6859 0
E-Mail:   press@comprion.com

COMPRION GmbH
Lise-Meitner-Str.3
33104 Paderborn
Germany