Isis has revealed that its forthcoming mobile wallet service will come with a prepaid card account, much like Google Wallet, along with a feature that enables users to “follow” merchants to receive coupons and offers, reports Digital Transactions.
The announcement came at a meeting for software developers and terminal-manufacturer executives in Austin, Texas – one of two locations where Isis will launch this July.
According to DT, the initial release of Isis will dabble in location-based services, which will provide users with the aforementioned coupons when approaching a participating merchant, as well as alert the merchant when a registered customer is approaching.
Users will also be able to pull up a list of participating merchants and select which ones to “follow” a la Twitter. Future versions of the wallet will retain certain aspects of location-based technology, such as generating a list of nearby participating merchants.
As for the prepaid card, each phone will be loaded with a small amount of cash, gratis from Isis, in order to encourage customers to use the service.
Like Google Wallet, the prepaid card will be protected by a PIN, but Isis was quick to point out that their card will not be subject to the same security threats that have haunted Google the last couple weeks.
According to Isis, Google’s PIN security failed because it was kept “outside” of the secure element – i.e., on the phone itself. With Isis, PINs would stored and verified within the chip where it can be better protected.
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Isis' announcement about its partnership with the card issuers reveals why Google is leading the digital wallet field. Well, that and the fact that Isis hasn't even launched its service yet and will not do so until July, if current schedule holds, while Google Wallet has been up and running since September of last year. Instead, Isis should be busy building relationships with its users, using the card issuers as nothing more than vendors. That is exactly what PayPal has been doing for so long now and is one of the reasons for its great success. For a more detailed analysis: http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/a-non-news-from-isis-tells-us-why-google-leads-the-digital-wallet-field.