Paymark, Vodafone New Zealand, 2degrees and Telecom have joined forces to allow New Zealanders to buy goods over the counter, collect loyalty points and pay for public transport with their mobile phones.
The companies announced yesterday that they will form a joint venture and launch a trusted service manager (TSM)for "mobile wallet" services.
This initiative will create the infrastructure to enable many of the cards in a wallet to be replaced by applications stored in a virtual wallet on a mobile phone, the companies said.
The "mobile wallet" system works by using a near-field communication (NFC) chip inside a smartphone. NFC allows information to pass from one device to another when they are close together. It is regarded as safer than Bluetooth as it has a much shorter range, reducing the risk of information spilling into the wrong hands.
