The NFC Forum has issued a statement of support for host-card emulation at its all-member meeting this week in San Francisco, calling HCE a “promising addition to the portfolio of NFC solutions that could potentially accelerate market growth.”

The backing by the trade and standards group for HCE as an option for NFC rollouts is not surprising, given, among other reasons, that most HCE-enabled phones are likely to follow the forum’s NCI specification for connecting NFC controller chips to smartphone host processors.

In addition, the forum has not always seen eye to eye with companies or groups promoting a SIM-only model for rolling out secure NFC services, which it did not consider open enough. HCE enables service providers to launch applications using card-emulation mode without using a secure element.