GlobalPlatform recently published a comprehensive implementation guide on how the company's card specifications can be deployed on a secure element, according to NFC News. Payment processing companies, third-party developers, financial institutions and mobile phone carriers will be particularly interested in the document, which focuses specifically on the advancement of secure application management on embedded secure elements.

According to Mobile Payments Today, the secure element is the chip that holds payment and personal information on a mobile device for use across multiple simultaneously-running applications. Developers have created three methods for deploying secure elements on mobile phones - through a universal integrated circuit card (UICC), a smart microSD card or an embedded secure element.

While the news source also reported that carriers, mobile operating system providers and handset manufacturers have yet to settle on a uniform method for secure element distribution, the industry is working toward a consensus. Gil Bernabeu, the technical director at GlobalPlatform, noted that it's important to have uniform standards for securing customer data.

"GlobalPlatform has been working to standardize all three SE form factors to provide service providers and application developers with confidence when creating their products," Bernabeu told the news source. "With standardization and interoperability across the marketplace, developers will only need to make one application, where they once needed to create three."

Some issues that the newly released guide addresses include the behavior of each individual piece on the secure element value chain and the roles and responsibilities of these aspects in various business models, the news source reports. Other topics includes the needs of card manufacturers and application developers when working with smart microSD cards and the latest secure element configurations.