A senior executive with Citibank has accused Isis, the joint venture between US mobile operators AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile of “hampering  the development of NFC as a mass-market commercial proposition”. Dickson Chu, global head of digital networks and mobile at Citibank (pictured), said it was unclear what the operators behind Isis were trying to achieve “other than extract a toll as gatekeepers”, according to a report in the publication Finextra.  Citi is backing Google Wallet which is a rival to Isis. Chu said the operators could do a lot more to promote NFC but instead their actions are slowing the technology’s take-up. The executive was speaking at the BAI Retail Delivery conference (11-13 October), an event for the retail banking community.

Chu’s strongly worded attack indicates the gloves are now off in the mobile payments market. Citi has been an early supporter of the Google Wallet mobile payment service. In fact the service was only available at launch on a Citbank Mastercard card as well as a prepaid card from Google, although the venture has now started to work with Visa, Discover and American Express. Citi is not however working with rival Isis whose financial partners are Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and Barclaycard.

Citi is certainly a supporter of NFC. Talking to Mobile Money Live recently senior VP Thomas Ko mentioned NFC as being among the next “mobile money (services) that really counts”  with the potential to replace credit card transactions. Like its competitor Isis, Google Wallet is a backer of NFC as the primary means of delivering mobile payments.