M-wallet: Partnership between Isis and USAT

• Isis has joined forces with the vending-machine payments provider USAT (USA Technologies) to set up 7,500 compatible machines and talk network operators into integrating Isis contactless payments. The implementation is to rely on USAT’s ePort and ePort Connect card readers.

• Their agreement calls for Isis to pay an unknown per-machine amount to USAT. A 31 December 2012 initial end-date has been set up but may be postponed to 31 March 2013 if need be.

• These automatons will be added to 300 Coca-Cola vending machines already supporting Isis’ Smart Tap in Austin.

Source: Digital Transactions

• This partnership aims at strengthening both partners’ position and might help Isis with their launch. Since its 2010 creation year, the JV has in fact been delayed a certain number of times and has had to cope with an increasingly competitive pressure.

• For now, only four issuers (American Express, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase and, soon, BarclayCard US) let their customers store cards to the wallet. Last May, about 50 merchants (accounting for about 300 points of sale in Austin and Salt Lake City) had expressed their intent to go for the contactless app: the critical number of 1,000 locations had not yet been reached (see also February 2012 Insight).

• Finally, Isis is only available on a few Android smartphones and relies on a SIM-centric model for card storage. Its Smart Tap feature has also been designed to cater for contactless customer redemption (not unlike Google Wallet’s SingleTap).