INSIDE Secure launches first true NFC Forum tag

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE: INSIDE Secure announced the availability of the MicroPass 4101-2K, the first true NFC Forum tag to offer ample memory capacity for demanding applications at an affordable price.

Based on the proven INSIDE Secure MicroPass platform, the cost-effective MicroPass 4101-2K is fully compliant with the NFC Forum Type 4 tag requirements with 2K bytes of memory, enough to store long URLs, business cards, phone numbers, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth pairing information and other application data that can be read by any NFC-enabled device.

"Until now, application developers have faced the dilemma of either paying too much for a true NFC Forum tag with enough memory for their applications, or using a more cost-effective but proprietary solution based on MIFARE Classic technology that presents interoperability issues," said Bernard Vian, executive VP of NFC and Payment Solutions at INSIDE Secure. "The MicroPass 4101-2K solves this dilemma by hitting the NFC tag sweet spot, providing developers with a truly compliant NFC Forum Type 4 tag that has sufficient memory at an affordable price and that can be read by any NFC device. With this introduction, we are ending the problem of NFC tag incompatibility."

According to Vian, the NFC Forum specifies four NFC tag types as the backbone of interoperability between NFC tag providers and NFC device manufacturers to ensure a uniform user experience. As tags based on MIFARE Classic technology do not comply with the NFC Forum specifications and require NFC devices to utilize a proprietary protocol stack to read them, these tags will not work with all NFC devices, creating user frustration.

At its core, the MicroPass 4101-2K is based on INSIDE's award-winning MicroPass intelligent payment platform, regarded by most in the industry as the gold standard for contactless payments. The MicroPass product is at the heart of the majority of contactless bank cards issued in the US and Canada, powering more than 30 issuer programs. The MicroPass platform was launched at CARTES 2005, and continues to achieve unprecedented success as the industry's platform of choice for a broad range of applications, with more than 280 million MicroPass devices shipped to date.

The INSIDE Secure MicroPass 4101-2K NFC Forum Type 4 tag and a companion development and personalization kit are available now.