Powerslave
It looks like Google is going to have things far from its own way in the mobile wallet market. While the search giant has been the most conspicuous innovator in this field, it is generally assumed that Apple will unveil its own version before long, maybe even next week.
But another major mobile wallet player has emerged in the form of Isis - a mobile wallet platform set up by US operators AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile USA (Sprint is Google's only operator partner right now). The big news from Isis is that a bunch of handset-makers - HTC, LG, Motorola, RIM, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson - have committed to make NFC-enabled devices that use the Isis standard.
Furthermore a company called Device Fidelity, which makes microSD cards that impart NFC functionality to devices that don't have it built-in, has also joined the party. This seems sensible as NFC is far from being ubiquitous, even in the latest smartphones.
"Isis' technology standards provide the direction and certainty needed for the development and deployment of NFC devices and the mobile commerce ecosystem," said Scott Mulloy, CTO at Isis. "Working together with the device makers and our founding mobile carriers, Isis can provide the consumer choice and scale necessary for widespread adoption of mobile commerce."
The Isis proposition is pretty much the same as the Google mobile wallet - using your smartphone for banking, payments and deal redemption (see vid) - and this too is restricted to the US. While Isis has the majority of operators and OEMs on-board (Apple and Nokia are the conspicuous absentees), Google seems to be stronger among merchants. And it owns Android and the biggest search engine, of course, not that Google would ever abuse its dominant position in search to restrict competition.
There is at least some mobile wallet innovation going on in Europe. Visa Europe launched Visa Mobile Person-to-Person payments today, which allows users to transfer funds to any Visa cardholder in Europe from their mobile. It even has an app, which you can see a screenshot of below, and there's also a new service to alert you whenever your Visa card is used.
