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Mny thnks Karl. I overlooked the "host" part. 

Geez, I am rusty on Host Card Emulation but yes, now I remember. That takes us back to the first digital wallet wars when Google was forced into HCE because the handset vendors wouldn't allow access to the NFC chips. 

Do we really want to do all this again? 

I know that granting access to the NFC chips is hard. So it should be! But the effort needs to be weighed against the reward of proper hardware security, which HCE cannot provide.

Or can it?  

The article states:

"Apple would create the necessary APIs to allow equivalent access to the NFC components in the Host Card Emulation mode, a technology issued to securely store payment credentials and complete transactions, without relying on an in-device secure element."

I want to query the part about 'not relying on an in-device secure element'. 

As I understand Host Card Emulation, it does use a secure element, just not the same one as in the EMV smartcard. That is, the protocol will use Apple's iPhone enclave.

For a bank and a handset vendor to agree to use an NFC chip set to emulate an EMV card, thebank must satisfy itself that the NFC chips are more or less equivalent to EMV chips as "secure elements". 

It will bethesame logic when a handset's NFC chip set isused to hold an (emulated) eID, e-passport or mDL. 

If I am correct, then the article might be misleading for it implies that the Apple NFC offering would foresake a secure element. 

Steve Wilson, Lockstep Consulting. 

Can people please identity themselves? It's hard to thread conersatyions when it's "a finextra member". At least sign off your comments using some handle please.