Yes, there is a standard for payments on the PIN pads. However, the real push for ISIS/Softcard was that they could do more than payments. They wanted to be a

Yes, there is a standard for payments on the PIN pads. However, the real push for ISIS/Softcard was that they could do more than payments. They wanted to be able to push coupons through the PIN pads to the POS from their app. That was how they were planning to monetize the platform. The fees they would get from banks to hook into the system were minimal. Even if the PIN pads could support coupons over NFC, most large scale POS software could not. I had experience last year trying to integrate ISIS/Softcard into a large retailer that was running IBM/Toshiba ACE POS software and ISIS/Softcard support wasn't even IBM/Toshiba's radar. Many large retailers run ACE (Kroger, Safeway, Costco, Macys, etc.).