After years of attempting to compete with Google’s own Wallet with a carrier-focused mobile payment solution, the joint-venture that created SoftCard (nee Isis) may be in the process of selling itself for a massive loss to its biggest competitor outside of Apple.
A new report by TechCrunch has revealed that the joint venture is anything but successful despite the heavy marketing tie-ins with retailers and card partners, with daily losses in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars and million-plus monthly losses. The latest valuation for SoftCard is pegged at under $100 million, a drastic decline in value compared to the tens of millions of dollars that were initially invested in the development of the service.
Should Google indeed be looking at acquiring SoftCard, it would end years of carrier stonewalling against the search giant’s mobile payment service, which we’ve covered at length in the past. SoftCard currently counts American Express, McDonald’s and Subway as key merchants and card partners, though the venture recently laid off 60 employees in a bid to further consolidate operations, with morale within the venture at an all-time low according to statements from current and former employees.
