Isis, a venture of three of the top four U.S. mobile providers, plans to launch mobile payments services with the major payments networks Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express.

Isis, a venture of Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc, and T-Mobile USA, said on Tuesday that the four payment networks will support mobile payments from Isis phones when it rolls out its service in the first half of 2012.

Isis will compete with Google Inc and No. 3 U.S. mobile service Sprint Nextel, which have said they will launch services this summer.

Both services are expected to allow consumers to pay for goods by waving their cellphones at a check-out terminal instead of using credit cards.

Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc. Deutsche Telekom unit T-Mobile USA has agreed to be bought by AT&T.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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