Chase, Capital One and Barclaycard are the first banks to enable their credit, debit and prepaid cards to be placed into the Isis Mobile Wallet.

Isis, which is a joint venture of AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless, is scheduled to launch in Salt Lake City, UT, and Austin, TX, this summer. Consumers in those cities who are customers of Chase, Capital One and Barclaycard and who have an NFC-enabled smartphone will be able to use their phones to purchase items at participating merchants.

“For merchants, this answers the question, will the banks issue?,” said Jim Stapleton, chief sales officer of Isis, New York. “Because if they do not, there is not a lot of point in merchants enabling contactless payments at the point of sale.

“For banks, this is getting their cards in a secure way into the mobile wallet so that they are able to continue to service and message their cardholders through the form factor that consumers are increasingly asking for,” he said.

Leveraging hardware
Consumers will be able to load their eligible Chase, Capital One and Barclaycards into their Isis Mobile Wallet in order to shop at various retail locations.

The Isis Mobile Wallet will provide consumers with a way to pay, redeem coupons and present loyalty credentials, all with the tap of their phone.

Chase, Capital One and Barclaycard will tailor their cardholder service experience within the Isis Mobile Wallet to reflect their respective brands.

The banks will be integrated into the Isis Mobile Wallet in two key areas. First, the banks will be able to send card credentials through a smartphone, with users able to activate a card using the mobile wallet.

Additionally, Isis has developed an issuer-branded widget that goes inside the wallet so that users who tap on a specific card will see a branded, customized experience from that bank that could include its rewards program and co-marketing offers from retailers.

“For these banks, this is a very significant commitment,” Mr. Stapleton said. “The only way to do it right and make sure the experience is secure for issuers, consumers and retailers is to leverage the hardware.”

Table stakes
Isis is focused on building a mobile payments ecosystem that also includes relationships with Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. This means the banks can enable any major network payment card.

Isis also has support from many leading handset manufacturers, with HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility, RIM, Samsung Mobile and Sony Ericsson all planning to launch NFC-enabled mobile devices that use Isis’ NFC contactless technology.

By putting the all the pieces in place, Isis hopes to help drive consumer adoption of NFC-enabled mobile payments.

“Having the cards is the table stakes that will drive the consumer to adopt,” Mr. Stapleton said. “Then they will be able to discover along the way all the benefits they will get as they shop, pay and save.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York