Category: NFC Technology

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.

Visa and Orange have now announced that they will be working together in this new service.

Orange, a French operator group, has now entered into a strategic partnership with Visa, the credit card giant, in order to help to speed up the awareness of using NFC technology for contactless mobile payments in the country.

The operator has also launched a smartphone based prepayment solution in France called Orange Cash.

These two companies are collaborating to make sure that rate by which consumers are discovering mobile payments based on NFC technology will be considerably accelerated in France. Both of these companies have stated that their goal is to boost awareness of the benefits of using near field communications tech for contactless transactions. They feel that France is a solid marketplace for this type of effort as it is already seeing an increasing adoption among consumers.

The companies stated that in the last half year, contactless mobile payments terminals in France have increased by 50 percent.

In the last six months, the number of terminals used by French merchants that include contactless mobile payments has risen by over 50 percent. This means that today there are more than 200,000 active terminals in the country. Moreover, there has been a tremendous NFC technology enabled smartphone deployment in the country, which ensures that a growing number of consumers actually have the necessary tech to complete contactless transactions.

The prepayments service called Orange Cash will become available to subscribers to Orange that have NFC technology compatible smartphones in Caen and in Strasbourg in the first part of 2014. This will be the first stage in a nationwide launch of the mobile payments program within the second quarter of next year.

Customers using this program will need to download the app for Orange Cash from the app store that is applicable to their device, and then simply top up the account with funds by choosing their bank card. In order to actually make a mobile payment through this service, they will simply need to tap their NFC technology enabled device against a compatible payment terminal at the checkout of the retailer’s location.