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The big US carriers will shut down their mobile wallet this month
There was no question that AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon gave up on their Softcard mobile payment service when they agreed to pre-install Google Wallet, but it's now apparent that they're beating an especially hasty retreat. Softcard is telling users that its service will stop working after March 31st -- when April rolls around, both the app and your account go bye-bye. It's doubtful that you'll shed a tear for an offering that was mostly meant to stifle competition, but you will have to choose another tap-to-pay service fairly quickly if you happen to be one of the remaining customers. Thankfully, there won't be a shortage of alternatives any time soon.
Google Wallet to come pre-installed on phones for major carriers
In an ironic turn, Google is now partnering with AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile to bring its Google Wallet mobile payment app to their Android phones later this year. Yes, those are the same carriers who made life pretty difficult for Google with their own payment solution, Softcard (formerly called Isis). The real point of this deal: Wallet will be pre-installed on Android phones running KitKat or higher, which makes it far more likely that people will actually use it. Google's also acquiring some technology and intellectual property from Softcard, though it's unclear what exactly it's getting. Sure, it feels as if we're in the mobile payments Twilight Zone -- Softcard was the main reason Google couldn't bring Wallet to every single Android phone. But now that Apple Pay is taking off (even the US government wants in on the action), and Samsung is gearing up for its own wallet by buying LoopPay, Google has to do something to rev up its own mobile payment action. And that starts with making Google Wallet a default feature, rather than being an app people have to discover and install on their own.
WSJ: Google to resurrect mobile payments with Softcard purchase
Don't call it a comeback. Okay, maybe you should: Google wants to revive Wallet after seeing how popular Apple Pay has been, according to The Wall Street Journal. To do so, Mountain View is apparently in the early stages of a deal to take ownership of the carrier-owned Softcard as part of this Lazarus act for its mobile payment system. Previously, carriers in the United States were reticent to preload Wallet onto their devices because, at the time, they were trying to launch ISIS, going so far as to block the chip that stores credit card info. Times are different now, as WSJ tells it, because neither AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon gets a cut from Cupertino with surprise hit Apple Pay -- something that'd change by working with Google. How's that? The internet behemoth will reportedly pay them to feature Wallet on their Android phones and give them a bigger cut of the money it makes off of ads that live inside mobile searches.
The big phone carriers might sell Google their mobile wallet
Remember Softcard (formerly Isis, but renamed for obvious reasons)? It's a joint venture that AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile started in 2010 to get into mobile payments without ceding the market to Google Wallet and Apple Pay. That hasn't quite worked out, since few want to put a $70 case on their iPhone to use mobile payments, and a caseless option for the iPhone 6 has yet to arrive. Tonight Techcrunch first reported rumors that it's in talks for a sale to Google, while Paypal and Microsoft are apparently interested too. The initial report puts its pricetag at under $100 million, less than the hundreds of millions the mobile carriers invested in it. Google and Softcard have both declined to comment on the rumor, but it seems more a matter of when and who will pick up the pieces, not if.
US carriers are bringing their tap-to-pay wallet to the iPhone 6
Don't worry that Apple Pay will be the only game in town for tap-to-pay shopping on your iPhone 6. The carriers behind Softcard (aka Isis) have revealed that they're working with Apple to bring their NFC-based payment system to newer iPhones sometime in 2015. While you'll need a Softcard-aware SIM card in your phone for this to work, you hopefully won't have to slap a bulky case on your device this time around. It's doubtful that this solution will work as elegantly as Apple Pay, which doesn't even require that you launch an app, but it should let you purchase with your iPhone in considerably more places.
Isis mobile wallet becomes Softcard to distance itself from terrorists
The Isis crew promised it would rebrand its mobile wallet to eliminate any confusion with ISIS, the Middle Eastern terrorist group, and today that change is at hand: meet Softcard. It's not a particularly bold name, but the payment company believes that the "inherent simplicity" of its new badging could make it ubiquitous. Whether or not that's true, the transition should happen relatively quickly. You should see the Isis Wallet app transform into Softcard within a few weeks. Traces of the old naming scheme will stick around for a short while, but it should be a distant memory before too long.
