Apple VAS readers

Apple VAS (Value Added Services) are concerned with storing and using digital passes in your Apple Wallet. In the same way that Apple Pay replaces bank cards when making contactless payments, Apple Wallet will store NFC enabled digital passes, which replace physical loyalty cards, event tickets, club membership numbers, QR-codes and other IDs used for non-banking applications. NFC passes in Apple Wallet can only be used with readers that support the Apple Pay VAS (Value Added Services) protocol.

Apple VAS reader compatibility

Apple devices’ native NFC capabilities enable contactless communication between the device and the VAS reader but a standard NFC tag reader or NFC tag reading application cannot read an NFC wallet pass. Apple VAS requires that the NFC reader implements Apple VAS Enhanced Contactless Polling (ECP), which is an Apple-proprietary extension to EMV and ISO/IEC 14443-A (NFC-A). ECP enables the frictionless ‘Tap-and-Go’ experience.

Apple VAS reader ‘Tap-and-Go’

VTAP Apple VAS readers auto-detect the relevant NFC pass from locked iPhones – making interactions hassle-free for users, and dramatically improving through-put for venue managers.

Ticket entry is many times faster with NFC wallet passes, compared to QR-codes – which must be manually selected from a wallet after first unlocking the phone.

Apple Wallet NFC reader security

All pass data exchanged over NFC is securely encrypted using ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) and merchant-specific key pairs. Unlike QR-codes, NFC wallet passes cannot be copied by a screen-grab and then shared.

Boxed readers

Simple to configure, connect and deploy with huge connectivity options

VTAP boards

Simple to integrate, configure and embed into any system

VTAP Cloud

Powerful reader management and unique ‘taps to apps’ connectivity

Apple VAS NFC readers

The range of VTAP NFC wallet pass readers has been fully certified by Apple to work with their VAS protocol – including all the features necessary to enable automatic pass selection and decryption.

VTAP readers

Fully certified by both Apple for VAS, and Google for Smart Tap.