US Business and Economy

In digital wallet business news, a new venture is in the works with AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USE and Verizon Wireless to bring their technology to markets outside the U.S.

Spokesman Jaymee Johnson explains that the venture, called ISIS , has been discussing international opportunities.

ISIS has the goal of enabling consumers to use their phones for either credit card or debit card purchases in stores. They are in stiff competition with Google Inc. and other startups in the mobile payment field. According to Juniper Research, this is an incredibly hot and ever-growing field with a worldwide market that is expected to reach $670 billion by 2015.

During an interview, Johnson said, “The underlying equity partners in ISIS give us some degree of visibility and awareness beyond the U.S.”

ISIS, however, is a bit behind Google with their venture. While Google Wallet launched in September, ISIS only plans to start in two cities in mid-2012. ISIS has announced a few news items that show that support for them is growing. One of their technology providers in the U.S. will be Gemalto NV and they’ve announced agreements with payment networks Visa Inc. and handset makers such as Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.

Take a look at this promising list of American’s most promising companies from Forbes. In an era when so many businesses are hurting, and when entrepreneurs are always trying to think of the next best thing, this list offers excellent insights into the business world.

In total, they ranked 100 of the most up-and-coming and promising companies. It’s a list worth looking at – and skills worth adapting in this ever-changing business world.

The luxury lifestyle company Michael Kors Holdings surprised everyone recent, raising almost $1 billion in an initial public offering. 47.2 million shares were sold, each for $20. This generated proceeds of $944 million and sets the company at a value of about $3.82 billion.

Kors is one of the judges on the hit TV show “Project Runway” and he is the founder and CCO of the company. As Francis Gaskins, the IPOdesktop.com analyst said, “A company like this can go public even in an uncertain market based on their recent successes. They’ve done a lot of things correctly in the past couple of years.”

This example of one of many that shows the luxury good industry rebounding favorably after the sharp drop in 2009. Analysts see 2011 as a record year for the industry, particularly for upscale watchmakers, hotels, fashion designers and leather goods groups. Italian fashion house Prada SpA has a $2.1 billion IPO recently and Italian luxury shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo had one at $487 million.

For many in the business world, it appears that Texas may be the place to be. Texas added 1.2 million net jobs since December of 2000, when Rick Perry took office as the Governor. This is in contrast to the 1.1 million jobs that the U.S. lost as a whole over the same time period. There has been a 40% rise in education and health services jobs this decade, and a 67% rise in mining jobs, all of which are fueling these numberes.

Moody’s Analytics shows that total employment in Texas is slated to expand 2.9% annually through 2015, which translates to 1.6 million new jobs for the state in the coming five years.

As Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi said, “Everyone is singing from the same hymn book at the Austin Chamber of Commerce.” Gov. Perry has been working hard to bring companies into the fold. In particular, while courting Washington State companies such as Amazon.com, Microsoft and Starbucks he wrote, “As the State of Washington considers a multibillion-dollar tax increase for citizens and businesses … I invite you to consider your future in America’s new land of opportunity: the State of Texas. If Washington doesn’t want your business, Texas does. Texas has no personal income tax and no interest in getting one.”

Fitch Ratings has let America know that there is little chance that the American rating will be influenced in the coming year by world events. A top analyst with the rating agency explained that there isn’t much possibility that a “material adverse shock” in the U.S. in 2012 will lead Fitch Ratings to cut the U.S.’s credit rating.

As analyst David Riley told Reuters in a recent interview, “You can never say never, but it’s not our expectation that there is going to be any material developments that would lead us to change the rating over the next 12 months.”

He continued by saying, “If we had a relatively short downturn because, for example, the crisis in Europe got much worse and there was a spillover effect to the U.S. but we thought that it ultimately would prove to be temporary for the U.S. … then that wouldn’t necessarily lead us to change the rating.”