Michael Abbott, CEO of Softcard – the US mobile payments venture backed by AT&T, T-Mobile US and Verizon Wireless and formerly known as Isis – today claimed the industry’s future is “very bright,” using consumer response to his company’s 2012 deployment in Salt Lake City as justification for his bullish outlook.

Two years ago, before Softcard’s nationwide rollout, the company trialed mobile money services in Salt Lake City, Utah and Austin, Texas. Today, Abbott claims that payment active rates in Salt Lake City are 2.5 times the national average, taps per active user are 50 per cent higher than the national average, and local users are 3.5 times more likely to engage with offers and 4 times more likely to use loyalty cards than the national average.

“This test represents a microcosm of how the mobile payments’ ecosystem will work when we reach scale,” said Abbott. “Over the next 2-3 years this industry will grow rapidly. More phones will ship, more banks will be in mobile wallets and more merchants will accept mobile payments.”

The Softcard chief also announced that the mobile money service is now available on Windows Phone, a move that Abbott believes reinforces its status as the first and only NFC-based mobile wallet app supported on multiple mobile operating systems.

“We believe in customer choice – it’s one of our core principles and an important factor in driving widespread consumer adoption,” he added. “Giving consumers more choice is reflected in the number of devices supported by Softcard – I’m also pleased to announce that by the end of this year Softcard will be supported on more than 100 devices, another industry milestone.”