WAKEFIELD, Mass. – December 16, 2020 – NFC Forum announced today a new release of its product certification program (CR12) that for the first time enables smartphone manufacturers and suppliers of other devices using contactless technologies to prove conformance to NFC technical standards that are now harmonized with other industry contactless standards.

Smartphones and other NFC-enabled devices that conform to CR12 can support the wide variety of NFC implementations while also improving the user experience in use cases such as, but not limited to, public transport, contactless payment, access control, automotive, proof of ID and eDriver’s licenses.

CR12 offers the first industry independent contactless standard certification program that certifies compliance with contactless standards from the NFC Forum. There is no cost for the certificate from the NFC Forum with a valid test report from an authorized test lab. This new pricing goes into effect January 1, 2021.

“The contactless experience for billions of people just got better. Before CR12, many NFC implementations were using slightly different variations of one or more core technology standards,” said Mike McCamon, executive director, NFC Forum. “This created many challenges for technology suppliers and manufacturers to create truly seamless interoperable products and services. The primary benefit to users will mean that CR12-certified mobile phones and other devices can seamlessly work in all contactless applications that use the new harmonized technical standards.”

In the last few years, NFC Forum conceived and led harmonization efforts with important core standards such as ISO/IEC 14443, ISO/IEC 18092, ISO/IEC 15693, JIS X 6319-4, EMVCo and GSMA. The goal was to eliminate differences in the standards and improve the end user experience. The NFC Forum inventoried the variations of contactless standards and developed solutions to eliminate the differences between the standards. The appropriate specifications were updated according to these revisions and the NFC Forum Certification Program was refreshed to match the technical specification updates.

The NFC Forum was launched as a non-profit industry association in 2004 by leading mobile communications, semiconductor, and consumer electronics companies. The Forum’s mission is to advance the use of Near Field Communication technology by developing specifications, ensuring interoperability among devices and services, and educating the market about NFC technology. The Forum’s global member companies are currently developing specifications for a modular NFC device architecture, and protocols for interoperable data exchange and device-independent service delivery, device discovery, and device capability. Only member companies can participate in the Forum’s certification program of NFC devices, readers and tags.