Mobile Payments Systems – The Key Players

In the Online / mobile payment, there appears to be cut-throat competition among different providers which is expected to accelerate in the following period.

As it is assumed that with the expansion of payments with mobile phones, the makers of payment terminals will also compete for:

Contracts to replace current point-of-sale terminals

Create new hardware for stores
Train stations
Taxi cabs
Doctor’s offices
Any other place with a tap-to-pay systems

As online payment, a worth-noting fact of information era, is becoming, rather, vital for the online services’ users, some information is presented about the major players of the field:

ISIS

The ISIS (Headed by CEO Michael Abbott) claims that its mobile wallet will, fundamentally, change the methods/habits to shop, pay and save and will, ultimately, eliminate:

Need to carry cash
Credit and debit cards
Reward cards
Coupons
Tickets
Transit passes,

ISIS has entered into:

Joint venture with AT&T
Verizon Wireless
T-Mobile
Partnerships with

Visa
MasterCard
American Express
Discover

It is, now, planning to start mobile payment testing in Austin, Texas and Salt Lake City in 2012.

Sprint’s Nexus S 4G Android Smartphone

It is the only alone operator, which is operating outside ISIS and is the first to work for digital purchases and peer-to-peer payments, through:

Google Wallet
American Express’ Serve mobile-payment application

Google

Google Wallet, the first mobile payment move by Google, is an app and payment system that combines deals and discounts with NFC and digital payments.

Google Wallet will work with MasterCard’s PayPass system
On Sprint’s Samsung Nexus S 4G
Citi and FirstData are also partners

Google Wallet is, currently, going through trial in San Francisco and New York and its launch is expected ‘this summer’.

Square

Square is co-founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey (also co-founder of Twitter) and lets small business owners or individuals swipe credit cards through the Square attachment to accept payments.

Its prominent features include:

An app

Small ‘cubelike’ credit card-reading attachment
Can be slipped into the 3.5mm headset jack of mobile phones and tablets

The app also manages peer-to-peer transactions in competition with PayPal. Square has also been pitched as an alternative to NFC.

PayPal

It is eBay-owned pioneer of peer-to-peer payments online with several apps for mobile phones and APIs for making them add PayPal modules to their created software.

Phone manufacturers

Nokia and Samsung are the pioneers in the U.S. market (with Nokia starting in 2006 with NFC) while the Microsoft’s Windows Phones will also be NFC-supported and enabled.