Some of New Zealand's biggest banks and telcos have joined forces to launch Semble, a SIM-based NFC mobile payments service.
Telcos Vodafone, 2degrees, Telecom teamed up with bank-owned payments network Paymark on the joint venture nearly three years ago, promising to enable New Zealanders to make secure payments, collect loyalty points and use public transport with their mobile phones.
With ASB and BNZ onboard as banking partners, the service has now finally gone live and close to one million Kiwis can download the free Semble app to their Android handsets and request a new SIM from their telcos.
Users can then add credit and debit cards and make contactless payments. For added security, customers have the option to set a five digit PIN that they enter each time they make a payment.
Semble CEO Rob Ellis, CEO, Semble, says: "We have produced a mobile wallet that can cater for a wide range of services and what we are launching today with payments is just the beginning. We look forward to welcoming many more service providers to the Semble marketplace, including more banks as well as loyalty cards, public transport cards, ticketing, offers, vouchers and much more."
From June users will also be able to add cards from Snapper, a payments outfit whose cards care used to pay for things like public transport and parking. Meanwhile, offer redemption trials are being conducted with burger chain BurgerFuel.