Resources and Tools to Help Merchant Technology Ecosystem and Companies Capitalize on Mobile Commerce

NEW YORK CITY – November 21, 2013 – Isis®, the mobile commerce joint venture created by AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA Inc. and Verizon Wireless, today announced the launch of the Isis Alliance Program. The Isis Alliance Program supports merchant technology ecosystem partners with exclusive tools and resources to help them capitalize on the opportunities created by mobile commerce.

“We created the Isis Alliance Program to serve as a resource where companies looking to deploy mobile commerce solutions have access to tools and information,” said Jim Stapleton, chief sales officer, Isis. “The Isis Alliance Program will help companies harness the competitive advantages created by mobile commerce and better serve merchant customer needs.”

The Isis Mobile Commerce Platform™ offers merchants the ability to deliver a richer, more personalized relationship with their customers through the Isis Mobile Wallet®. It leverages the existing payments infrastructure, which means any merchant with a contactless payment terminal can accept payments via the Isis Mobile Wallet.

“Merchants depend on the retail technology industry to deliver the latest, most innovative technologies to grow their businesses,” said Joseph Finizio, president and CEO, Retail Solutions Providers Association. “We’re pleased to support the Isis Alliance Program and believe the critical tools it delivers will help retail technology providers future-proof their offerings and advance the solutions hitting the marketplace.”

Leading payment terminal manufacturers and software partners are integrating near-field communications (NFC) mobile payments and Isis SmartTap capabilities into point-of-sale (POS) offerings to ensure merchants can fully maximize the business opportunities created by mobile commerce. This enables Isis Mobile Wallet™ users to pay, present loyalty cards and redeem offers in a single transaction, effectively creating a new platform for merchant marketing campaigns and streamlining the customer experience.

“We applaud Isis for the launch of the Isis Alliance Program. Industry innovators like Isis are capitalizing on strong consumer and merchant interest in mobile payments, and the Isis Alliance Program recognizes the ISO and POS solution provider channel is a powerful pathway to get new technology to merchants,” said Jason Oxman, CEO, Electronic Transactions Association. “With relationships with more than eight million merchants, ETA member companies are uniquely positioned to introduce their merchant customers to new payments technologies. We applaud Isis for utilizing the merchant services channel to drive business, provide technology leadership and create new opportunities.”

The Isis Mobile Wallet is available nationwide and accepted in a range of merchant environments such as mass transit, vending machines, fuel pumps, taxis, restaurants, grocery and retail stores. The Isis Alliance Program supports companies representing all aspects of the merchant technology ecosystem, from hardware and software to service and technology providers.

“We firmly support the Isis Alliance Program – it aligns with our goal of advancing the understanding, adoption, use and widespread application of smart card technology,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director, Smart Card Alliance. “By partnering with merchant payments acceptance providers, Isis is taking all the right steps to deliver secure payments and mobile commerce capabilities to merchants.”

To learn more or join the Isis Alliance Program, visit www.IsisAllianceProgram.com.

About Isis

The joint venture is between AT&T Mobility LLC, T-Mobile USA, Inc. and Verizon Wireless and is based in New York City. The venture is chartered with building Isis, a national mobile commerce venture that will fundamentally transform how people shop, pay and save. The Isis Mobile Commerce Platform™ will be available to all merchants, banks, payment networks and mobile carriers. Isis, Isis Mobile Wallet, Isis Ready, Isis Mobile Commerce Platform and the associated logos are trademarks of JVL Ventures, LLC in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other logos, product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. For more information, visit www.paywithisis.com.

ABI Research has released a projection that sensor fusion will present a tremendous opportunity.

According to the latest forecasts from ABI Research, there will be over one billion smartphones that are equipped with a geolocation based marketing friendly sensor fusion technology by the year 2016.

Sensor fusion uses multiple sensors to combine data to become more useful and comprehensive than the individual data.

Patrick Connolly, a senior analyst from ABI Research, explained that “Sensor fusion is vital in enabling a consistent location experience, RF mapping and the industry to scale rapidly. Unfortunately, it is not just a case of putting in a 9-axis sensor to achieve this. Highly complex algorithms are required to optimize sensor outputs, integrate with other location technologies and combine with machine learning and data-fusion algorithms.” This will be defining for geolocation based marketing.

Geolocation based marketing will become increasingly effective and will provide an enhanced consumer experience.

Connolly went on to state that this technology will go far beyond BLE and Wi-Fi as the most important indoor geolocation based marketing technology based from handsets by the year 2017. At the moment, there is a definite trend in the direction of hybridization, as senor fusion, BLE, and Wi-Fi are showing themselves to be critical. By next year, hybrid location based marketing technology solutions will already have leapt ahead of individual indoor smartphone location tech.

He also pointed out that differentiation will be offered through LTE-direct, object recognition, and optical light technologies over the long term. Through this tech, retailers can use geolocation based marketing services to provide consumers with coupons and other attractive offers and discounts to shoppers based on where they are located within stores and shopping malls. Moreover, they can be used by enterprises for the tracking and management of assets.

As a whole, the market for geolocation based marketing and other uses of the technology is projected by ABI Research to be worth $ billion by the year 2018. It will be driven by the penetration of mobile technology and by vendors that offer venues such as warehouse retailers, stadiums, airports, and shopping malls products for bringing services and content directly to the devices of users based on where they are located.