IDA-Pay: a secure and efficient micro-payment system based on Peer-to-Peer NFC technology for Android mobile devices

The evolution of modern mobile devices towards novel Radio Frequency (RF) capabilities, such as Near Field Communication, leads to a potential for delivering innovative mobile services, which is still partially unexplored. Mobile proximity payment systems are going to enhance the daily shopping experience, but the access to payment security resources of a mobile device (e.g. the “Secure Element”) by third party applications is still blocked by smartphone and Operating System manufacturers. In this paper, the IDA-Pay system is presented, an innovative and secure NFC micro-payment system based on Peer-to-Peer NFC operating mode for Android mobile phones. It allows to deliver mobile-to-POS micro-payment services, bypassing the need for special hardware. A validation scenario and a system evaluation are also reported to demonstrate the system effectiveness and performance.