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Bringing a new meaning to the term pay phone

GrabOne has come out as the first New Zealand company to integrate with Passbook, a new feature in iOS6 that enables the storage of coupons, loyalty cards, tickets and more on your iPhone. And the mobile wallet fun doesn’t stop there, because Westpac, Telecom and Auckland Transport have cranked up a trial. 

passbook grabone app nzPassbook essentially works as a mobile wallet, where users can swipe their device to electronically redeem offers or scan a pass, and is geo-fenced so that if you walk into, say, a Starbucks, it will automatically display the relevant reward card, doing away with the need to search through the app (in theory).

“Passbook will really simplify managing and finding coupons when you need them,” says GrabOne’s Dave Agent. “We’re proud to be the first company in New Zealand to sign up for Passbook and are sure many local businesses will follow suit in time.”

Current Passbook partners include Starbucks, Target, Ticketmaster, Lufthansa, and Live Nation.

GrabOne has a 75 percent market share of the daily deal market in New Zealand and says its mobile app is currently used by nearly a million people every month.

Elsewhere in mobile territory, Auckland Transport, Telecom and Westpac are undertaking a trial in collaboration with Gemalto, Thales and Paymark, with the organisations working together to develop a virtual mobile wallet that can hold multiple cards, including a credit card and transport card. 

“Telecom built the Smartphone Network with smartphones in mind, as people are doing more than ever on these devices,” says Telecom’s chief product officer Rod Snodgrass. “This trial takes the use of mobile payment technology to a whole new level. We are all accustomed to storing our address books and diaries in our phones.  Well, now we can store our wallet there as well. This is not simply another application, it truly is a ‘mobile wallet’, which will hold multiple cards and secure applications, providing a fast, convenient and safe way to purchase goods and services.”

Westpac Chief Information Officer Peter Fletcher, said over the next 3-5 years, mobiles will become customers’ key banking tool for transactions, product research and other banking needs. 

The next phase of the trial will see 30 plus participants test the new mobile wallet technology at contactless POS terminals across Auckland Transport’s network and top up their Telecom mobile accounts on their mobile. The technology is expected to be available near the end of 2013.

Learnings from this next trial phase are expected to enable the collaboration partners to further build on the proof of concept and develop an even wider and more valuable mobile wallet proposition for consumers.

This mobile wallet trial is another step towards a full rollout of NFC technology within New Zealand. It comes off the back of Paymark, Telecom New Zealand, 2Degrees and Vodafone New Zealand’s announcement in April 2012 of their intention to form a Trusted Services Manager (TSM), which will establish a robust, open ecosystem for NFC-enabled New Zealand.

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