Isis launched nationwide in November following a two-city trial in Austin, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah, and has made NFC SIMs and Isis-ready phones available in shops of the Isis joint venture
With only three issuers and a handful of "SmartTap" merchants participating in the Isis Wallet so far, consumer take-up is believed to be modest. On the six-month anniversary of the nationwide launch, in mid-May, Isis announced activations had hit an average of 20,000 per day over the previous month, about double the rate compared with the prior 30-day period. An offer of $25 free credit for users activating the Serve prepaid card issued by AmEx has helped increase activations.
The few national or regional merchants involved with Isis, Jamba Juice and Toys “R” Us, have also provided generous offers. And the toy retailer recently disclosed it had recorded 23,000 total transactions over a three-month period following the Isis launch.
But there are relatively few places for users to tap to pay and fewer still where they can redeem rewards and offers using Isis SmartTap software. The JV partners hope the move by U.S. banks and merchants to more secure EMV technology also greatly increases the penetration of contactless POS terminals. Yet, Isis also faces challenges from banks using host-card emulation, which enables them to avoid putting their applications on NFC SIMs or other secure elements.
* Trusted Service Manager: Defined loosely to include companies or other organizations securely distributing, provisioning and managing applications, generally over the air, on secure elements in NFC mobile phones; or licensing their platforms for this purpose.N/A: Not available or not applicable.
Last update: June 2014
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