CHICAGO–A day after the Wall Street Journal reported Isis was changing its business model by working with other established payments organizations, an executive for the organization told a panel here at the Smart Card Alliance’s annual conference nothing had changed.
In fact, he said, things are progressing ahead of schedule.
“We’ve always had a roadmap that included multiple issuers,” Doug Kilgour, who heads Isis sales and account management for direct merchants, told attendees. “Merchants like the idea of opening it up to more issuers.”
Isis is an NFC initiative involving wireless providers AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA and payments players Discover Financial Services and Barclaycard (
Isis has announced plans for a 2012 pilot involving the Utah Transit Authority’s system in Salt Lake City, and Kilgour reaffirmed that plan here (
Kilgour presented an Isis mobile-wallet illustration that showed a screen with American Express Co. and MasterCard Worldwide entries along with Discover. “The plan is to have every issuer who wants to be in the mobile wallet be in the mobile wallet,” he said, noting Isis plans to invest significantly in mobile commerce.
Moreover, contactless payments alone will not present sufficient utility to drive NFC and mobile payments, Kilgour said.
“We know the merchant and the consumer want the experience of taking the leather wallet [with loyalty cards and more] and putting it in the phone,” he said. “That’s the vision for Isis.”
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