Softcard, the US mobile payments venture backed by AT&T, T-Mobile US and Verizon Wireless, has laid off 60 employees “to reduce costs and strengthen its business,” Recode.net has reported.

In a statement, the company formerly known as Isis, said it will be “simplifying the company’s organisational structure and consolidating all operations into its Dallas and New York offices, which involves layoffs across the company.”

If the number of staff members stated on LinkedIn is correct, the layoffs will affect around 12 to 30 per cent of the company’s employees.

The launch of rival Apple Pay at the end of last year effectively meant Softcard was locked out of the iOS market.

However, CEO Mike Abbott remained positive, when he announced in November that the mobile money service was available on Windows Phone, a move that he believed reinforced Softcard’s status as the first and only NFC-based mobile wallet app supported on multiple mobile operating systems.

“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,” he had said at the time.

As far as Android devices go, Softcard’s rivals include Google Wallet and PayPal, and potentially CurrentC, which is expected to launch this year and will be accepted at 110,000 locations in the US.