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Trial puts GE credit card in NZ telco's mobile wallet

Published

Nov. 4, 2013

The New Zealand telco 2Degrees and GE Capital have launched an NFC-based mobile payments trial. Participants will be able to load a GE Capital credit card on their 2degrees Samsung Galaxy S III smartphones and tap to make payments.

More than 10,000 contactless terminals are now live in New Zealand, 2degrees said, including at retailers such as Progressive Enterprises (Countdown), Bunnings, Kmart, The Warehouse, Resene, Repco, Z Energy and BP.

The trial differs from others in the market, the telco said, because it doesn't require special accounts or funds to be pre-loaded onto the phone.

"This trial is an important precursor to the wider industry initiative and allows us to push technology boundaries and test how a credit card and our existing mobile payment system with Snapper will co-exist," 2Degrees CMO Malcolm Phillipps said in a news release.

Phillipps added that the partnership with GE is an example of the increasing competition in the New Zealand personal finance market and proof that innovation can come from nontraditional players.

"As the largest non-bank lender in the country, we have a long and successful history of providing consumer finance across a broad range of partners," Hadyn Halls, GE Capital general manager, consumer, said in the release. "Through our network, we have extensive visibility to what's happening in the retail space. ... Near field communication represents an exciting shift in payment history, and we're proud to be involved in helping to deliver a world-class and highly secure solution."

The trial, in collaboration with Gemalto, will run for three months with participants providing feedback at different stages to assess and monitor its performance, 2degrees said. The trial follows Paymark, a recent collaboration between 2degrees, Telecom New Zealand and Vodafone New Zealand to form TSM NZ Ltd., a Trusted Services Manager program that the companies said will establish a robust, open ecosystem for NFC-enabled services in New Zealand.

Learn more about contactless/NFC and mobile/digital wallets.