It looks like the mobile wallet wars are just starting to heat up, as USA Today’s Edward C. Baig wrote in an interesting article earlier yesterday afternoon. Isis, a New York City-based joint venture formed by AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless announced that Chase, Capital One and Barclaycard will let customers place their credit, debit and prepaid cards into the Isis Mobile Wallet. Users will then be able to make purchases at participating stores using NFC technology found in newer smartphones.
The Isis Wallet organizes your payment cards, offers and loyalty cards in one convenient app and will be available on a variety of the most popular phones beginning this summer. The service will launch in Austin, TX and Salt Lake City, UT with more cities to follow soon after.
If you’re worried about safety, which is definitely a valid concern these days, you’ll be pleased to hear that Isis offers some really nice features like remote wipe and extra safegaurds like no account number visibility and constantly changing security codes make it virtually impossible to counterfeit your card. The service also features standard security features like 4-digit PIN protection and personal privacy so nobody can dig their nose in your business to find out how much you’ve been spending at that adult “novelty shop” located right off the interstate.
What do you folks think? Does this sound like a competitor for Google Wallet, or is it just another cheap imitation?
Source: USA Today
