Apple Pay Octopus launch day was a big success, so successful that Octopus apologized for their servers buckling under the demand. What’s next for Octopus, Google Pay? There are some possibilities but when it comes to Android there is the matter of the Secure Element (SE), where it resides and what transaction protocols are supported.
From the NFC hardware angle everything has been ready to go on all smartphone hardware for years, NFC A-B-F is required for NFC certification. The problem has been on the SE side, the black box where all the transaction magic happens. From GlobalPlatform the SE certification organization:
A SE is a tamper-resistant platform (typically a one chip secure microcontroller) capable of securely hosting applications and their confidential and cryptographic data (for example cryptographic keys) in accordance with the rules and security requirements set by well-identified trusted authorities.
There are different form factors of SE: embedded and integrated SEs, SIM/UICC, smart microSD as well as smart cards. SEs exist in different form factors to address the requirements of different business implementations and market needs.
GlobalPlatform Introduction to Secure Elements
SE Wars and Google HCE ‘SE Pie in the Sky’
In the pre-Apple Pay mobile carrier hardware era, carriers used SE SIM or embedded Secure Elements (eSE) + SIM combos that chained customers to service contracts for the privilege of using mobile payments. This is the classic Osaifu Keitai textbook maneuver pioneered by NTT Docomo: leave those pesky SIM Free whiners in the cold world of plastic cards and hard cash, or crippled digital wallets until they give up and buy an overpriced carrier SIM.
This brain dead approach is one reason why Mobile FeliCa ended up being ridiculed as ‘galapagos technology’ even though everybody copied it with inferior crappy me-too products. This carrier SE hostage situation, i.e. the Mobile Wallet SE Wars, led Apple and Google to follow different strategies to address the problem.
The Apple Pay Way
Apple’s answer of course was Apple Pay. A unique in house strategy of putting a GlobalPlatform certified Secure Element in their A Series/S Series chips then building it out from there. Most eSE go on the NFC controller, but doing it the Apple in-house way has advantages over a NFC chip vendor bundle: control of the eSE applets and ability to update them and the Apple eSE for new protocols in iOS updates. We saw this in action with the addition of FeliCa in 2016, PBOC in 2017 and MIFARE in 2018. We may even see the addition of Ultra Wideband (UWB) Touchless in iOS 14.
The Google Pay Way
Google’s answer to the carrier owned SE problem was the more convoluted evolution from Google Wallet (2011) to Android Pay (2015) and finally Google Pay (2018). Google first salvo was Host Card Emulation (HCE): “NFC card emulation without a secure element” hosted on Google’s cloud. Later on Google attempted to do the same for FeliCa with HCE-F.
But then something happened that put an end to all this: Google decided to get into the hardware business. And now we have Google Pay and Google Pixel with it’s own embedded Secure Element (eSE). With Pixel, Google decided they didn’t want to be the Secure Element cloud provider for every Android OEM out there especially when the Chinese OEMS are all rolling their own eSE based digital wallet services anyway, completely ignoring HCE. Sure, HCE/HCE-F is still there in the Android developer documentation but it’s a dying vestigial relic of the SE wars.
But Google Pixel depends on vendor bundled eSE + NFC controllers and the Osaifu Keitai software stack. This makes global NFC support more complicated because Google doesn’t ‘own’ the eSE and the software stack, at least not in the Apple sense of making their own all in one design. This is one reason why Pixel 3/4 only support FeliCa in Japanese models even though all worldwide models have the same NFC A-B-F hardware.
The end result of all this is the Android market is a very fragmented landscape, there are no global NFC Android smartphones: a device that supports EMV, FeliCa, MIFARE, PBOC out of the box in one globally available package.
Google Pay Octopus and the Android Global NFC Installed Base
Back to our original question, can Google Pay Octopus happen? We already have Google Pay Suica right? Let’s assume that Octopus Cards Limited (OCL) has everything in place for it to happen. Here we run into the problem just described: there are’t any global NFC Android smartphones available globally. Samsung sells them in Japan and Hong Kong, Google only sells them in Japan along with Huawei, Oppo, Sharp, etc.
For OCL this means the potential Google Pay installed base that can support Hong Kong Octopus consists of Samsung Galaxy smartphones that are already using Smart Octopus in Samsung Pay; not exactly a business opportunity worth the support expense. Even if Google Pixel 5 goes deep instead of cheap, Hong Kong would have a potential Octopus non-Samsung Android device, but that’s only one new device not an installed base. I only see Google Pay Octopus happening if Google localizes all the necessary Osaifu Keitai software and foots the entire support expense.
There is a way forward however for OCL: Garmin Pay Suica. The same Garmin APAC models that support Suica can also support Octopus, the recharge backend is entirely Google Pay. Garmin smartwatches work with any Android 5 and higher smartphone, a much larger installed base that bypasses the fragmented Android problem. Garmin Pay Octopus would offer Android users a way in, who want to use Octopus on a mobile device but who don’t want to use Samsung or Apple devices.
The conclusion: forget Google Pay Octopus for the time being. Hong Kong is a golden opportunity for Gamin Pay Octopus….if Garmin can get Garmin Pay clearance from Hong Kong authorities and banks, and cut a deal with OCL. It’s certainly in Octopus’ best interest for OCL to help turn the negotiation wheels. It’s also in Google’s interest as Google Pay would supply the recharge backend as it does for Garmin Suica. Big hurdles all, but I hope it happens.
Update
There’s another possibility besides Garmin Pay or Google Pay: Huawei Pay Octopus is said to be launching before the end of 2020. Huawei has shipped FeliCa capable smartphones for the Japan market since June 2018. From a hardware perspective Huawei Pay Octopus support is ready to roll and Huawei has the deep pocket resources to build their own support stack without using Osaifu Keitai apps, just like Apple and Samsung have done. It makes sense in light of Google Pixel refusing to support global NFC, and gives Octopus Cards Limited a second digital wallet platform in the all-over-the-place global NFC support reality of the Android world.
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