MIVO - RFID based Mobile payment system

Apart from being the same species, the one thing you will find common in almost every person around you is a mobile phone. Speaking with no humour here, but these days, mobile phone is something every person keeps one whether he is an urban citizen or a rural being.

Mivo is a low-cost, stripped down mobile payment system, designed specially to change lives in rural areas of developing countries. As said by the designers of this system, it can compensate for non-availability of internet and ATM booths in rural areas. Users can make financial transactions via text message transactions (SMS) using RFID – enabled phones.

As per Mivo, the payment system is completed in three steps namely:

1. Identification

2. Authentication

3. Database access and updates

Mivo uses Radiofrequency identifiers for Identification yielding from security and cost reasons. As the user enters the amount for transaction, RFID tags are activated and the information on the tag is captured by the reader which sends it to the microcontroller for decryption. The microcontroller under use is ATmega16. Next, the user is prompted to enter the security code. To make the system quick and convenient, a 4-digit security pin is used for Authentication. In the third step, data is transferred between the user and the database which is conceived via Ethernet based communication. mySQL is used here for server database management.

The logical flow of the system is controlled by a state machine which also involves various subsystems.