Isis Wallet Mobile Payments

One of the competitors in the Great Mobile Payments Race is changing its name. Isis Wallet, a mobile payments joint venture of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile is changing its name to Softcard for fairly obvious reasons. Isis Wallet operates by having the consumer store his/her payment card information on a "secure element"--tech speak for a tamper resistant chip that safely stores encrypted information.  (The particular secure element for Isis Wallet depends on the phone model.) That payment information is then communicated with merchants using NFC (near field communications, i.e., contactless).  Isis Wallet also integrates various loyalty programs and merchant offers (including some that are proximity based). As Apple's Apple Pay platform shows, mobile payments is becoming a crowded field with some real heavyweights. Yet, as I'll blog shortly, there are some real challenges ahead for anyone in the field.