Isis teams with Chase, Capital One and Barclaycard for mobile wallet

BARCELONA, Spain--Isis, the forthcoming nationwide m-commerce network spearheaded by Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ), AT&T (NYSE:T) and T-Mobile USA, will begin mobile wallet trials in mid-2012 with three card services partners: Chase, Capital One and Barclaycard.

Isis announced the partnerships here at Mobile World Congress 2012, stating that consumers can load eligible credit, debit and prepaid cards to Isis Mobile Wallet when trials begin in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas, later this year. The Near Field Communications-based Isis Mobile Wallet enables consumers to securely pay for purchases, redeem coupons and present loyalty program credentials by tapping their smartphone against a corresponding reader device.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile USA first announced Isis in late 2010. The following May, Isis stated it would open its system to all interested credit issuers and banks, and two months welcomed financial services providers Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express to its ranks. According to Isis, its relationships with the four U.S. payment networks affords banks the flexibility to enable any major network payment card while giving consumers the choice to decide which cards to load into their digital wallet.

Beyond financial services partners, six device manufacturers--HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility (NYSE:MMI), Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM), Samsung Mobile and Sony Ericsson--have committed to introducing devices that support the Isis platform. Late last year, Isis also announced it will team with digital security firm Gemalto to boost safety around mobile payments and related services.

Isis faces competition from a host of rival m-payment services, including the Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Wallet tap-and-pay application. Initially limited to Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) Nexus S smartphones, Google Wallet expanded to AT&T's (NYSE:T) Android-powered Galaxy Nexus smartphones running an AT&T SIM card following an Android Market device compatibility update issued earlier this month. Late last year, Verizon stated it would ship the Galaxy Nexus without preloading Google Wallet.

Mobile payments for digital and physical goods, mobile money transfers and NFC-enabled contactless transactions will almost triple from $240 billion in 2011 to $670 billion in 2015, Juniper Research forecasts. The firm credits the accelerating adoption of mobile ticketing, NFC contactless payments, physical goods purchases and money transfers in both developed and emerging markets as the catalysts behind the expected growth, adding that the number of mobile money users will double by 2013.

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