In November 2010,
AT&T,
T-Mobile, and
Verizon officially announced a joint venture known as Isis, which planned to develop a
near-field communications-based
mobile payments platform. The venture also announced partnerships with
Discover Financial for access to its
point-of-service network, and
Barclaycard as a card issuer. The company stated that it planned to "introduce its service in key geographic markets during the next 18 months". The three carriers announced plans to invest more than $100 million in the project. The service originally planned to operate as a
payment system that would handle its own transactions, but citing rapidly developing competition, Isis changed its model to integrate with existing credit cards and payment networks. On July 19, 2011, Isis announced that
American Express,
MasterCard, and
Visa would additionally back the platform. Isis planned to launch a trial program in
Salt Lake City and
Austin in early to mid 2012. In February 2012, Isis announced
Barclaycard,
Capital One, and
Chase as launch bank partners for the service. Isis soft-launched in Austin and Salt Lake City on October 22, 2012, and launched nationwide on November 14, 2013. In September 2014, the service was
renamed "Softcard", as the name "Isis" had gained negative connotations due to its perceived association with the
terrorist organization the
Islamic State, often called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and/or abbreviated to ISIS.
Google acquisition, discontinuation On February 23, 2015,
Google announced that it would acquire certain assets and intellectual property from Softcard, and integrate it into its own service,
Google Wallet. At the same time, it was announced that AT&T, T-Mobile US, and Verizon would begin to back Google Wallet, and bundle its app with their compatible devices later in the year, in place of Softcard. The partnership aimed to build a stronger competitor to the competing mobile payment platform
Apple Pay, which was introduced alongside the launch of the
iPhone 6 in late 2014, and experienced heavier adoption than other competing services due to
Apple's position in the market. Softcard CEO Michael Abbott had previously indicated that the company was "actively working" with Apple to integrate its service with the device. Google Wallet was also backed by
Sprint and
MetroPCS. All three carriers had previously worked together in a standard setting environment without including Google Wallet; Verizon refused to allow its devices to access the service because it requires access to the "secure element" of a smartphone, despite Softcard having the same requirement. The Softcard service and apps ceased to function on March 31, 2015. Softcard customer data was not migrated to Google Wallet, and the service does not support
Windows Phone. At Google's
I/O developers' conference that May, the company unveiled a replacement for both services known as
Android Pay. ==Technologies==