What’s In Your Isis Wallet? Not Capital One

The Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile US backed Isis mobile wallet has lost one of its three founding card issuers.

Capital One, along with Chase, and Barclaycard partnered with these mobile carriers in 2012 to test out Isis in limited markets in Austin, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah. The trials would be a prelude to the nationwide launch coming later this year.

Earlier this week, Capital One sent an email to its customers announcing a withdrawal from these trials.

According to a Capital One spokesman who spoke with NFC World, the card issuer’s “pilot test with Isis will be coming to an end soon.”

“We have gained valuable insights from our customers who were among the first to pay with the Isis Mobile Wallet,” the card issuer added. “We continue to engage with Isis on the future of mobile payments.”

According to Yankee Group analyst, Jordan McKee, Capital One may be pulling its support for Isis due to the mobile wallet’s business model. “Issuers must pay each time a consumer loads their card onto the wallet. The caveat is that whether or not a consumer uses the card, the issuer must pay to have it in the Isis Wallet. Card issuers are interested in encouraging card spend whereas Isis is purely interested in getting consumers to link their cards to the wallet. This conflict of interest will continue to be problematic.”

Losing Capital One is a major blow. Coupled with increasing competition and the push for different payment technologies (Bluetooth Low Energy from PayPal, Apple, and NFC-less Google Wallet), Isis may face challenging times ahead.