Microsoft Pay (previously Microsoft Wallet) was a

mobile payment Mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device. Instead of paying with cas ...

and

digital wallet A digital wallet, also known as an e-wallet or mobile wallet, is an electronic device, online service, or software program that allows one party to make electronic transactions with another party bartering digital currency units for goods and s ...

service by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

that allowed users to make payments and store loyalty cards on certain mobile devices, as well on PCs using the

Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a Proprietary Software, proprietary cross-platform software, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft and based on the Chromium (web browser), Chromium open-source project, superseding Edge Legacy. In Windows 11, Edge ...

browser. Microsoft Pay does not require Microsoft Pay-specific

contactless payment Contactless payment systems are credit cards and debit cards, key fobs, smart cards, or other devices, including smartphones and other mobile devices, that use radio-frequency identification (RFID) or near-field communication (NFC) for making sec ...

terminals, and supported existing contactless terminals if used on mobile devices. Similar to Android Pay, Microsoft Pay utilized

host card emulation Host card emulation (HCE) is the software architecture that provides exact virtual representation of various electronic identity (access, transit and banking) cards using only software. Prior to the HCE architecture, near field communication (NFC) ...

(HCE) for making in-store payments. The service's original name was also originally used for a feature included in

Internet Explorer 4 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 (IE4) is the fourth version of the Internet Explorer graphical web browser that Microsoft unveiled in Spring of 1997, and released on September 22, 1997, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but also with versions availa ...

and

Internet Explorer 5 Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 (IE5) is the fifth version of the Internet Explorer graphical web browser, the successor to Internet Explorer 4 and one of the main participants of the first browser war. Its distribution methods and Windows integ ...

that allowed users to store credit card information to use with a limited number of supported sites.

History

Microsoft Wallet was launched on June 21, 2016, in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It was initially released to participants of Microsoft's

Windows Insider Windows Insider is an open software testing program by Microsoft that allows users globally who own a valid license of Windows 11, Windows 10, or Windows Server to register for pre-release builds of the operating system previously only accessible ...

program and was later made available to the general public on August 16, 2016, with the release of the Windows 10 Mobile Anniversary Update. The service was launched exclusively to

Windows 10 Mobile Windows 10 Mobile is the fourth and final generation of Microsoft's Windows Phone mobile operating system, succeeding Windows Phone 8.1. First released in 2015, it was marketed by Microsoft as being an Windows 10 editions, edition of its Per ...

in conjunction with an update to Microsoft's Wallet app. The launch of the Microsoft Wallet service established Microsoft's own in-house mobile payment platform, enabling it to bypass its prior dependencies on third parties for contactless payments on Windows-based smartphones. Microsoft's mobile operating system had previously supported contactless payments for NFC-equipped handsets as early as 2012 in

Windows Phone 8 Windows Phone 8 is the second generation of the Windows Phone mobile operating system from Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft, released on October 29, 2012. It runs on the Windows NT kernel and is the successor to Windows Phone 7. It was the first ...

and the original Wallet app. However, in the prior operating system, Microsoft depended on third-party intervention to make the payments feasible. Mobile carriers had to support this by providing secure element SIM cards to customers. Additionally, in the United States, mobile carriers

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

T-Mobile T-Mobile is the brand of telecommunications by Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telec ...

, and

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc. ( ), is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the ...

required use of their joint-venture developed platform, Softcard, to process the payments. When Softcard was purchased (and subsequently shut down) by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

in early 2015, it left the Windows platform without a viable contactless payment system in the United States. The platform allowed Microsoft to coordinate directly with financial institutions and credit card issuers to make contactless payments on Windows-based smartphones, beginning in the United States. On November 15, 2017, Microsoft rebranded Microsoft Wallet to Microsoft Pay and allowed payments to be processed through it on

Edge Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...

. Microsoft retired the service on February 28, 2019, coinciding with the company's end of support for

and subsequent exit from the mobile OS market at the end of the year.

References

External links

* {{Digital payment providers Microsoft Mobile payments in the United States Mobile payments

History

See also

References

External links