LAS VEGAS, Nev. – After Capital One dropped out of the Isis wallet last year, the large U.S. credit card issuer let it be known that one of the biggest reasons it was snubbing Isis was that it believed it had to cede too much control to the third-party wallet provider.
As Capital One Financial’s vice president of digital commerce, Paul Moreton, put it earlier this year, “someone owns the secure element, and in that case, it (was) not us.” In addition to having to put its application on Isis SIMs, Capital One also was relegated to being a “sub-brand” in the Isis wallet, unable to use its own mobile-banking app for payments, said Moreton.
That's why Capital One this year has thrown its support behind host-card emulation, which it says will enable it to use its own Android app for payments, with the application stored on its own servers.