What is Global Platform?

Extract from 2008 Winter Review magazine

The Global Platform standard is an initiative of JCB, MasterCard, Visa and other global leaders of the financial services industry. It offers a standard and trustworthy framework for putting many different applications on any smart card-based personal device, including bankcards and NFC-enabled SIM cards in mobile handsets.

Global Platform defines a way to guarantee the isolation and security of each application. This means the transport operator can control m-ticketing and the bank its payment application, while the mobile operator maintains complete control of its mobile services subscription. It also defines mechanisms for securely adding and removing these applications in the SIM device at any time.

To make it happen, the Global Platform standard divides the SIM card into independent private spaces called security domains. Each service provider has its own security domain and maintains full control over it; no other service provider can access it or “eavesdrop” on its transactions. This architecture is essential in maintaining a clean breakdown of roles and responsibilities among the stakeholders of the value chain in a multiple service provider framework such as is expected for NFC ecosystems.