Slow start for NZ’s mobile wallet
A ‘‘tap and go’’ payment system that lets people pay for goods in shops using smartphones has not flopped, says its maker, despite anecdotal evidence that few people are using it.
The smartphone wallet, Semble, was launched six months ago as a straight replacement for ‘‘tap and go’’ debit and credit cards. In July, it also became possible to use smartphones with Semble on them as ‘‘virtual Snapper cards’’, to tag on and off Wellington buses.
Semble is a joint initiative between eftpos company Paymark and Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees.
Chief executive Rob Ellis said there were about a million smartphones in New Zealand that could use the app and ‘‘thousands’’ of people had downloaded it, but would not say how many transactions had been made using it.
Foodstuffs spokeswoman Antoinette Laird said stores were starting to see ‘‘relatively low numbers’’ of people paying for groceries at its Pak ’n Save and New World supermarket chains with Semble.
Ellis said about 15 per cent of Semble users had downloaded the app to use it on public transport.
But one Wellington bus driver on a route that passes both Victoria and Massey universities’ campuses estimated it probably was not being used to pay for more than one in 1000 journeys.
‘‘Some days you might see one or two people using it, sometimes three or four,’’ he said.
Snapper chief executive Miki Szikszia said it was seeing ‘‘thousands of transactions a month’’ using Semble out of millions of Snapper transactions in total.
‘‘We are very happy with how it is progressing. We would definitely classify it as early days.’’
Ellis said Semble was ‘‘on track with downloads, usage and ongoing service development goals’’ but had not yet been widely marketed. Until now Semble had been largely been driven by ‘‘word of mouth and highly targeted digital advertising’’, he said.
Semble can currently only be used as a replacement for BNZ and ASB bank cards. ANZ and Westpac have not yet got in behind the system.
The Semble joint venture also plans to release new features that could make Semble much more than just a straight replacement for ‘‘tap and go’’ bank and Snapper cards.