Developers / Card Reader / Overview

Intro

Plastic cards and door keys have served us for a long time, yet eventually all technologies evolve. They are, after all: easy to lose, lifeless and serve only one purpose.

Keys
Keys
Credit Card
Credit Card
RFID Tag
RFID Tag
RFID Card
RFID Card
Hotel Card
Hotel Card
Parking Ticket
Parking Ticket
Employee Attendance
Employee Attendance
Loyalty & Gift Card
Loyalty & Gift Card

With Cards, plastic cards and keys are easily and securely replaced by smartphones and sent to readers (see Supported NFC Readers) over NFC ("Near Field Communication") technology (see NFC).
Phone transmitting to NFC reader
Phone transmitting to NFC reader
Many benefits arise from upgrading to NFC:
  • Security is much stronger, dynamic and upgradable
  • Expanses cut on plastic cards/keys
  • Customer Experience boost due to shorter lines and waiting time
  • Logistics reduced drastically
  • Accessibility boost and ease of use which results in higher usage
  • Pollution dramatically decreases due to plastic and metal spared
  • Visibilty rises as customers are able to see your card on Cards app and use your self developed card apps (see Build Your Own Card Apps)

Card Reader SDK

Our SDK provides the easiest and fastest way of upgrading to a full, rich and safe NFC experience.
Your clients will be able to tap their phone (in many cases, already in their hand) on your cash register for loyalty identification or payment, entrance door for entry (gyms, theaters, shows etc.), parking gate or ticket machine for entry or payment, bus or train ticket reader for transportation etc.
We took care of everything for you: Protocols, Security, Resilience, Performance, User Interface, Robustness, Cross-Platform Support and Multi-Platform SDK.

Cards NFC Gateway Flow
Cards NFC Gateway Flow
Card Reader SDK provides you the verified identity of the smartphone's Cards wallet owner.
You will be able to safely apply your business logic according to the verified user ID resolved by the SDK: opening a specific door, validating loyalty points or providing other services much faster, easier and cheaper than magnetic stripe, RFID or barcode cards or even metal keys.
Card Reader SDK asks the identity of the tapped smartphone Cards wallet owner via a secure, encrypted, signed and two-way authenticated channel over NFC and then verifies the received information with Cards NFC Gateway API over a secure, encrypted, signed and two-way authenticated API request.
Start developing with your favorite language: C++, C#, Java, JavaScript (NodeJS), Python, Visual Basic and more (see Supported Programming Languages) over your favorite operating system: Windows, Linux, MacOS and more.