Disappointment to aside for a second, I will start off by saying at least someone has done something to the mobile payment market to keep New Zealand ahead or shall we say in line with the rest of the world.
Bearing in mind that it’s has only been announced today and actually will not be able to be used until early 2015, Semble will allow ASB and BNZ customers to whip out their smartphones instead of a credit or debit card to pay for goods. But disappointingly this will work with Android NFC phones only, also requires a special Sim card and in my opinion means that BNZ and ASB are unlikely to support Apple Pay. While Westpac is going on its own and creating its own NFC payment app.
ANZ remains the only major bank not to have an agreement and are choosing to waiting and see what happens in the mobile payment world. Now you can say yes I am an Apple fan but I would strongly suggest that the bank in New Zealand that does the first deal with Apple to bring Apple Pay we’ll see great things.
According to Semble CEO they are yet to talk to Apple about the potential access to use the NFC chip inside the new iPhone 6 and 6 plus but I suspect this will be a big fat NO from Apple as they will stick to their own Apple Pay, unless it doesn’t turn out to be successful (as if) then Apple may release access to the NFC chip to developers.