Spanish bank Bankinter has announced it plans to launch its long-anticipated host-card emulation service commercially in the second or third quarter, following a security evaluation by a Germany-based lab.

Bankinter on Monday said that the risk assessment conducted by the Fraunhofer AISEC lab has deemed the security of Bankinter’s cloud-based Mobile Virtual Card technology to be “adequate” for EMV online payments. The lab completed the evaluation on the MVC platform by early January, but the bank is just now releasing a one-line statement from the lab results and is announcing the planned commercial launch in the run-up to the Mobile World Congress next week in Barcelona. 

No lab report summary was immediately available and Fraunhofer AISEC did not respond to a request for comment or elaboration from NFC Times. 

If it launches as planned, Bankinter’s Mobile Virtual Card, or MVC, service could be the first HCE commercial service supporting EMV open-loop payments introduced anywhere. The service has been delayed in the past, however. 

The launch last month by Royal Bank of Canada of its EMV-enabled RBC Secure Cloud service uses secure elements to store tokens and a small applet so does not technically support HCE. 

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Among Topics Covered:

Bankinter’s commercial launch plans for its host-card emulation-based Mobile Virtual Card service. Comments from the bank on the meaning of the results of the risk assessment by the European lab and the term “adequate” security Waiver status from Visa Europe and MasterCard Worldwide for early HCE projects and note on the drafting of HCE specifications payment schemes How Bankinter’s MVC service works Use of temporary tokens stored on NFC phones to communicate with point-of-sale terminals without going to the cloud during the HCE-based transactions Security questions around use of tokens for HCE-based payment

Among companies and organizations mentioned:

Bankinter
Visa Europe
Fraunhofer AISEC (security lab) 
Seglan
Royal Bank of Canada, RBC 

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