Mobile payment service Isis to go nationwide this yr with iPhone support

Nrly three yrs after it was first announced, Isis is finally set to debut on the national stage. Bloomberg is reporting this morning that the carrier-backed mobile payment servicewill see a nationwide rollout this yr.For those unfamiliar with Isis, it’s a joint venture betweenAT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, looking to change the way consumers pay for things using NFC and other tech. And after 9 months in testing, it’s rdy for launch…FromBloomberg’s report:“The service, which lets users make purchases by tapping their , will work on Inc.’s (AAPL)i as well as Corp.’s Phone and BlackBerry Ltd.’s newest smart, Isis said in a statement. It will continue to work with some devices powered by Google Inc.’s Android software…“What you’ll see coming from us is a vastly improved product, a variety of new places to use it, a vastly improved user experience,”Ryan Hughes, chief marketing r at New York-based Isis, said in an interview.”Up until now, Isis has been testing its technology in more than 4,000 loions between Austin, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah. In the trials, the company says that users “tapped their ” an average 10+ times per month.Mobile payments is believed to be a $110 billion business, but it has proven thus far difficult to brk into. The market right now is terribly convoluted, with offerings fromGoogle,Square,Visa,PayPaland severalstartups.And it’s long been thought that the secret to mobile payment success is availability. For users to buy into a service, they have to feel confident that it will be available everywhere. And with dozens of options, that’s just not possible.Perhaps that’s why has thus far decided to stay out of the ar, opting for a wait-and-see approach. ItsPassbookoffering is little more than a digital wallet at this point, but it has all of the necessary resources to expand it.And that’s pretty much all we, as consumers, can do at this point, is wait and see. There’s no clr market lder in mobile payments, or even a standard wireless tech for it. It’ll be interesting to watch how Isis’ does later this yr.What do you think of Isis?