Semble gathers more steam with launch of nationwide pilot

Semble gathers more steam with launch of nationwide pilot

Auckland, 05 November 2014 – The first live payments using New Zealand’s mobile wallet, Semble, are being made across the country today as a landmark pilot programme kicks off.

Around 250 Kiwis from Auckland and Wellington are taking part in the programme, swapping their physical wallets for virtual equivalents on their smartphones and using Semble as the primary means of paying for goods and services.

The “piloteers”, a mix of people from Semble’s shareholder and stakeholder organisations, will test and experience the full Semble journey; downloading the app from Google Play, populating their wallets with live versions of their ASB and BNZ credit and debit cards and then making payments.

The pilot comes almost a month after Semble was unveiled to the public for the first time and is another major step towards commercial launch early next year.

Semble CEO Rob Ellis says momentum is gathering and adds that his experiences with the app to date have certainly lived up to expectation.

“It’s been a lot of hard work for all parties to get to this point but it feels fantastic to now be in full pilot. I’m successfully using both my ASB and BNZ cards in Semble to make payments at contactless EFTPOS terminals across the country and am thrilled with how it’s going. Being able to see Semble in action first-hand, and trialling a number of features like paying with an “always on” card, adding the optional security layers and shifting between cards at point of sale is a real buzz. The fact that we’ve been able to successfully collaborate with multiple parties to give the customer this sort of choice and user experience is really satisfying,” says Ellis.

The pilot phase is expected to run until early 2015 and Ellis feels this will be adequate time to put the technology through its paces.

“This is one of the last major milestones before launch and we’ll be working closely with our partners to assess how the app performs in a live environment across a range of devices and terminals,” adds Ellis.

He adds that the pilot will provide a wealth of information that will help further refine the app pre-launch and will be focusing strongly on understanding what customers think and feel about their Semble experiences.

“We’re looking forward to learning more as we move full steam ahead into the next phase of our Semble journey,” concludes Ellis.

ends

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