How NFC Business Cards Actually Work — Tap, Chip, Profile
— Vivax Business Card
What happens in the half-second between tapping an NFC business card to a phone and your profile appearing on screen? A plain-language tour of the chip, the tap, and the live profile behind it.
An NFC business card looks like an ordinary premium card, but inside it carries a tiny passive chip and antenna. When the card comes within a few centimetres of a phone, the phone's NFC reader powers the chip by induction — the card itself has no battery — and reads a short record that tells the phone to open a web address.
That address points to your live Vivax profile: name, title, company, contact details, social links, and anything else you choose to publish. The person you meet sees it instantly in their browser. No app to install, no account to create, nothing to type.
The tap, step by step
First, proximity: NFC works at very short range by design, so a tap is a deliberate act rather than something that can happen from across a room. Second, the read: the phone energises the chip and receives an NDEF record — essentially a URL. Third, the open: the phone offers to open that link, and your digital card loads in the browser.
Because the chip only stores a link, the card never becomes outdated. You can change your job title, phone number, or photo tonight and the same physical card will show the new version at tomorrow's meeting.
What if the other phone doesn't have NFC?
Every Vivax card also carries a QR code, and your profile has a personal link you can send by message or email. All three routes — tap, scan, link — open exactly the same live profile, so you are never dependent on the other person's hardware.
Saving the contact in one tap
A profile view is only half the exchange. Vivax profiles offer a one-tap vCard download, so the person you meet can save your details straight into their phone's contacts — correctly spelled, correctly formatted, with your photo attached. Compare that with a paper card that has to be retyped by hand, if it survives the trip home at all.
Security and control
The chip in the card is read-only in day-to-day use and holds nothing but the link — your data lives in your account, not on the card. If a card is ever lost, the profile behind it can be updated or the card deactivated from your dashboard, something no printed card can offer.
Vivax cards are currently sold out in Türkiye. If you would like cards for yourself or your team, tell us through the contact form on the business page and we will let you know as soon as they are available again.