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Japanese card issuer JCB is advancing to Phase 2 of its pilot program aimed at testing offline peer-to-peer (P2P) payments for a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
During the initial Phase 1 trials, conducted in collaboration with Idemia and Soft Space, the focus was on developing and assessing a mechanism that allowed merchants to accept CBDC without necessitating modifications to their point-of-sale (POS) terminals and payment cards.
In Phase 2, customers will gain the capability to transfer CBDC funds between individuals using their cards and mobile phones, even in the absence of Internet connectivity. The offline P2P fund transfers can occur either from one card to another, with a mobile near-field communication (NFC) device serving as an intermediary, or directly from one mobile NFC device to another.
Idemia and Soft Space will play key roles in the pilot, providing the tokenization back-end server, mobile wallet application, card application, and SoftPOS kit. Additionally, they will supply all required application programming interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs) for seamless system and application integration.
Joel Tay, Chief Executive of Soft Space, expresses delight over the success of Phase 1 and highlights the utilization of existing technologies, such as JCB’s contactless EMV technologies and Tap on Mobile SoftPOS. He notes that in Phase 2, they will explore host card emulation (HCE) and various offline scenarios developed with JCB, aiming to create practical use cases that ensure the eventual CBDC solution aligns with societal needs.
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