Three of the biggest mobile carriers in the U.S., Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, are backing a mobile payments solution called Isis. Based on NFC technology, the solution allows people to pay when required at participating locations by simply tapping their smartphones. Last year, a trial was launched in Salt Lake City and Austin, and Isis plans to roll out across the country by the end of this year. Unfortunately, it has lost one of its primary banking partners, Capital One.
The bank says that their pilot tests with Isis will soon be ended, however it does say that it will “continue to engage with Isis on the future of mobile payments.” It wouldn’t make sense for Capital One to pull out of the trial phase and rejoin the other banking partners after the nationwide launch. The other partners include Barclayscard, Chase and American Express. Isis is capable of working with Windows Phone, BlackBerry and Android smartphones. iPhones are left out of the fray because Apple’s smartphones don’t come with NFC technology. Isis did say last month that iPhone support will be coming soon, many thought it was a subtle hint that the new iPhones will have NFC, but the new iPhones have been announced last week and they most certainly do not have the required technology.