Tag: isis mobile wallet

Isis has announced it is changing its name to Softcard.

The Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T supported, American mobile wallet platform, is rebranding in an effort to avoid the possibility of being wrongly associated with the Islamic militant group ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), which has been involved in the deaths of Americans and citizens of other nations, including the recent public execution of American journalist, James Foley.

The change will take place in “a few weeks” according to the company’s homepage.

The CEO of Isis, Michael Abbott, explained in a note regarding the change that “However coincidental, we have no desire to share a name with this group and our hearts go out to those affected by this violence.” Abbott also added that only the name is changing, but everything else about the mobile wallet app will remain the same.

In the next few weeks, the Softcard app will be launched. Once it has been released, users of the portable payment system can update it as they usually would and once they do, their Isis Wallet will simply become SoftCard. Users can still expect the same services and features they are used to that enable them to securely store their financial information and make in-store purchases with a tap of their smartphones. “Your current Isis Wallet will continue to work as it always has,” Abbott says.

The CEO also explained the reasons behind why the name Softcard was selected. According to Abbott, what the company wanted was a name and “visual identity that had the power, flexibility and simplicity to define our category.”

Isis – soon to be Softcard – isn’t the only mobile wallet making news.

Amazon is one of the most recent companies to enter the mobile payments market with Amazon Wallet. However, at present, that app only stores reward and gift cards which can be scanned during purchasing.

In addition, the Isis mobile wallet name change announcement occurred almost a week prior to Apple unveiling details regarding its mobile payments service, Apple Pay, which was revealed by the company on September 9. Apple’s new payment system also uses NFC technology and will only be available on its new smartphones the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus.

The company also stated that it brought in 600,000 new members over the last month.

The Isis mobile wallet joint venture in the Unites States has now released a report that has indicated that it is activating an average of 20,000 new users per day, and that during the last month, it enjoyed an addition of 600,000 members over what it had previously registered.

Isis is the joint venture that brings AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile U.S. together.

This mobile wallet, like the other giants in this category, had a very slow start, facing far more challenges to adoption than had been anticipated. Now, it is gradually releasing a trickle of data to help to show its marketplace performance since its initial nationwide launch in November. Michael Abbott, the CEO of the company, wrote in a blog post that the current activation rate had reached double what it had been during the month before. That said, the company failed to mention exactly how many total activations had occurred since its NFC technology using mobile payments service became available.

There are now 68 different device models from the telecoms that support the Isis mobile wallet.

At the same time, Isis comes preloaded on 14 smartphones from Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T, and the plan is to add even more preloaded devices in the future. In his blog post, Abbott added that “We plan to further broaden our ecosystem of partners to provide customers with more options as well as new ways to save. We’ll continue to offer compelling consumer deals–all with the goal of helping consumers become ever more comfortable with mobile wallets.”

He also explained that in that vein, they will maintain their goal toward innovation to ensure that the users of Isis will be able to take advantage of an experience that is “simple and enjoyable” as they make their product purchases and complete their payment transactions.

A spokesperson for the company underscored the fact that this mobile wallet is now accepted at “hundreds of thousands” of store locations across the country that currently support mobile payments using contactless NFC technology. Some of these include Coca Cola vending machines, Jamba Juice, and even McDonald’s.