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Carrier-Led Mobile Payments Venture Isis Partners With USAT To NFC-Enable 7,500 Vending Machines In Select Test Markets

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http://techcrunch.com – Isis, the carrier-led mobile payments venture backed by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, is today announcing a partnership with USA Technologies, to introduce up to 7,500 NFC-enabled vending machines in Isis’ two test markets of Austin and Salt Lake City. The machines will allow for payment acceptance using USAT’s ePort hardware and ePort Connect service. That means consumers can soon purchase items in the machines by simply tapping their phone to pay. For those unfamiliar, Isis formally launched its mobile payments venture in October 2012, but only in the cities listed above as a p (IT news)

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Submitted by qq124 on 12/03/2012

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As previously rumored, the carrier-led mobile payments venture known as Isis has officially launched in its first two test markets today: Austin, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah.

Rumors of an impending ISIS launch have been swirling around for a while now, but the company has just finally put an end to all that speculation.

If you remember, earlier this month we told you about the Isis NFC mobile wallet application for  select devices on Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Much like Google Wallet, using the Isis application will turn your smartphone into a “wallet” of sorts allowing you to use your device to make purchases conveniently at participating retailers.

Google Wallet’s acceptance into everyday usage hasn’t been the smoothest, but has been picking up. With some carriers not allowing installs of Google’s NFC-based payment system, not everybody has been able to reap the benefits of living a potentially wallet-free lifestyle. So with such spotty acceptance, is there room for a competitor on this shaky ground?

ISIS is a Mobile Wallet application that was created by Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. The product will initially launch on October 22nd in the selected markets: Salt Lake City, UT and Austin, TX. ISIS aims to be similar to Google Wallet as you’ll be able to turn your smartphone into a virtual wallet and use it in combination with your NFC-enabled device to pay for your purchases.

The mobile wallet space is heating up — in that sun-peaking-over-the-mountains-and-evaporating-the-dew sort of way — and T-Mobile and co.

T-Mobile began rolling out an OTA update today for Samsung Galaxy S II devices. The changelog for the UVLH1 update is only two lines long, but the first line indicates “ISIS/NFC update.” We have not yet received confirmation as to whether the update includes an Isis app, but it appears T-Mobile is at least installing the framework.

The Isis Mobile Wallet was announced yesterday in limited rollout to Austin and Salt Lake City for now. http://news.paywithisis.com/

What struck me as interesting is the reference to needing to got to an AT&T store and pick up a new "secure element SIM".

Isis is all set to compete head on with Google Wallet as they’ve just announced their initial banking partners.  The company has stated Capital One, Barclaycard and Chase are to be the first among many to jump on board.  The companies will be the first to allow their debit, credit and pre-paid cards to launch when the Isis Wallet application kicks off this summer.