Isis Mobile Wallet in Limbo
The much-hyped Isis mobile wallet, an NFC-based mobile payment initiative from AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, hasn’t found much success.
Though at least 60 smartphones that are offered by these carriers are outfitted with NFC, which make them capable of NFC payments, most consumers aren’t actually using their phones to pay in stores.
In a correspondence between Computerworld and Isis’ CTO, Scott Mulloy, he stated, “A handful of retailers are moving counter to the broader industry movement towards more secure payment technologies.”
But it’s more than just a handful.
In fact, members of the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), which include the likes of Dunkin’ Donuts 7-Eleven, and Best Buy, are moving towards offering their own mobile payment method, in the form of mobile bar-code scanning for smart device checkouts, similar to the popular Starbucks mobile app.
Together, the MCX totals 110,000 stores that move $1 trillion in payments.
That’s a hefty number of retail heavyweights that won’t accept Isis as a payment method.
Though mobile payments are soaring globally, the US is lagging behind, with only 2% of transactions made on mobiles, compared to the total volume of payment card transactions.
Certain (Isis supporting) carriers blocked Google Wallet last year, on the grounds that the app required access to a handset’s secure element of the NFC chip, effectively banning its usage.
Google found a work around by using host-card emulation, effectively negating the carrier-control advantage that Isis gained in the short timespan.
NFC payments aren’t taking off in the United States and even the largest mobile payment providers need to reevaluate their expectations for consumer adoption and usage.
It’s a difficult prospect to entirely change consumer and merchant behaviors, and the case of Starbucks’ much-lauded payment and loyalty app may prove to be the exception to the rule for the foreseeable future.