Shoppers are a step closer to being able to use their mobile phones to pay for purchases after three telcos and a payments provider joined forces to launch a virtual wallet.
Paymark, Vodafone New Zealand, 2degrees and Telecom New Zealand are behind the plan for a Trusted Service Manager (TSM) which will allow payments to be made and loyalty points collected with just a mobile phone.
Customers will hold their phone a few centimetres away from a terminal and the secure information will be transferred to complete the transaction via near-field communications technology.
Paymark chief executive Simon Tong says the joint venture between the four companies will help set up the system which can then be built upon.
"It's the first time this particular mix of organisations has come together to provide a centralised TSM which will offer world-class, yet low-cost infrastructure," he says.
The open-access system is being built to make it easy for consumers to start using it and allow competing providers to offer services over the infrastructure.
NZN