Just when many industry observers were counting Softcard out in the wake of Apple’s announcement of Apple Pay, the mobile carrier joint venture formerly known as Isis today announced a deal with its biggest merchant to date, the Subway sandwich fast-food chain.

Starting next month, Subway will accept payments and, later, loyalty points from the Softcard wallet at its more than 25,000 U.S. locations. That follows the announcement by Apple last week that Apple Pay would be accepted at Subway shops, among the 220,000 merchant locations equipped for contactless open-loop payment in the U.S. 

Subway CIO Carman Wenkoff told NFC Times that he believes Apple, an expanded Softcard and other initiatives would move mobile payments to a tipping point in the U.S. in the next six months, after many false starts.