New Zealand's first mobile wallet is officially here

New Zealand's first mobile wallet, Semble, has officially launched across the country today.

Contactless payments are continuing to grow in New Zealand. Kiwis have already made well over 11m contactless transactions this year alone (January – February 2015).

In 2014, Kiwis made almost 40 million contactless transactions worth over $1.4 billion dollars. The number of contactless payments has increased by 64% in the last six months in New Zealand, and the number of active contactless terminals has grown by 66% since January last year.

From today, close to one million smartphone users around the country will be able to download the free Semble app to make secure payments using only their smartphone.   Representing a breakthrough industry collaboration, Semble brings together mobile network operators 2degrees, Spark and Vodafone with banking partners ASB and BNZ, and payments network Paymark, to offer the first ever integrated mobile wallet to New Zealanders.   Semble CEO Rob Ellis says the collaboration is unique on a global scale.   "Other mobile wallets have launched around the world, but Semble is the first to present a united front, with many industry leaders working together," Ellis says.

"Semble is a tremendous achievement for New Zealand. 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."   He adds, "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."   The app works with the addition of a Semble Ready secure SIM card, housing a chip that is like those used in credit and debit cards.

To use Semble, consumers hold their smartphone over any contactless terminal, wait for the 'accepted' notification on the terminal and the transaction is complete.   Ellis says the Semble app is designed to make the mobile wallet experience safe, easy and accessible.   "Semble is a natural evolution of how we already use our smartphones for so many different things on a day to day basis. Merging the wallet with the smartphone is the obvious next step," he says.   "It was important to design a product using the highest international security standards while still being something that's easy for Kiwis to use and simple for businesses to join.

"I'm proud to say we have achieved that and I encourage New Zealanders to give it a go."   Semble has been designed as a 'one stop shop' solution and the company's vision is to replace all the cards in the over-stuffed wallet within one integrated app.

Snapper has today been announced as the first new partner, which from June will see Snapper card holders extending the use of their smartphones into many more daily activities, including jumping aboard public transport.    Semble also announced today that in April it will commence an active trial testing special offers for redemption at point of sale using the Semble app, initially with New Zealand gourmet burger brand, BurgerFuel.

This marks the beginning of a third Semble category offering (voucher and offers capability) following payments and transit categories, with more details of other services to be announced in coming months.