Method and trusted service manager for providing fast and secure access to applications on an IC card

A trusted service manager for a telecommunications system including a service provider and a mobile communication device comprising a contactless smart card integrated circuit memory having read/write capability, the memory being divided into a plurality of sectors, each sector comprising a plurality of blocks, the sectors including a first sector for storing a user identification UID and further sectors, each of the further sectors being arranged to store an application in a number of its blocks as well as an access key for the application in another of its blocks, the trusted service manager being adapted to:

• communicate with the service provider via a computer network;
• communicate with the mobile communication device via an over-the-air service of a mobile network operator;
• and
• keep a repository of allocations of the memories of respective mobile communication devices and the user identifications UID assigned to the memories, the respective allocations comprising all applications installed in the respective memories, wherein, when a new application is installed in a memory identified by the user identification UID, the trusted service manager is adapted to:
• retrieve the present memory allocation of the memory from the repository;
• calculate an empty sector of the memory to create an assigned sector number;
• calculate an access key for the application;
• link the application together with the assigned sector number and key to the user identification UID;
• and
• store them in the repository;
• wherein the trusted service manager is adapted to receive from the mobile communication devices queries whether applications are available in respect of a specified user identification UID and to process said queries by retrieving from the repository the applications assigned to the user identification UID together with the assigned sector numbers and keys and transferring them to the mobile communication device via the Over-The-Air service for storage in the memory of the contactless smart card integrated circuit.