Wednesday, November 17, 2010

GreenBkk Tech | Telcos form Isis mobile pay venture with Discover

Telcos form Isis mobile pay venture with Discover

Credit: Reuters (http://www.reuters.com)

(Reuters) - Three of the top four U.S. mobile phone operators -- Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc (T.N) and T-Mobile USA -- have formed a venture known as Isis aimed at building a national mobile payments network.

Countries such as Japan have had mobile payment systems for years, that allows consumers to simply wave their phone at a terminal to pay for items such as train tickets.

But such services have been slow to take off in the United States where only about 150,000 merchants accept contactless credit cards that can be waved close to a payment terminal by the consumer instead of being swiped through a machine.

Isis said the network would use Discover Financial Services' (DFS.N) national payment network, which is used by 7 million U.S. merchants, and that Barclaycard U.S., a unit of Barclays Plc BARCBB.UL was set to be the first lender on the network to offer mobile payment products.

After kicking off its service with just Discover and Barclays, Isis plans to become available to other merchants, banks and mobile operators.

Isis said it will use a short-range wireless technology known as near-field communication, which enables an encrypted exchange of information between devices that are placed at a short distance to each other.

Michael Abbott, a former GE Capital executive, was named on Tuesday as chief executive of the venture.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; editing by Maureen Bavdek)

Credit: Reuters (http://www.reuters.com)


No comments:

Post a Comment