Published on the 07/12/2015 | Written by Donovan Jackson
It’s very nearly 2016 and we still use plastic tokens – essentially a 1950s technology – to make payments…
The good news is that with the launch of its GoMoney Wallet mobile payments solution, ANZ is spearheading the shift away from credit and debit cards, to using the smartphone instead. While Semble has been available for some time, GoMoney Wallet is the first mobile wallet system in New Zealand developed by a bank and which uses Host Card Emulation.
The system launches tomorrow (Tuesday 8 December) at around 11am and the bank said some 90 000 of its estimated 600 000 GoMoney mobile app users will be eligible to use it immediately. Owing to Apple locking down the NFC component of its iPhones for its own payment system, ANZ GoMoney Wallet is Android-only, and is available on a whitelist of some 20 devices, broadly defined as ‘the latest higher-end handsets’.
The system effectively requires the user to load their Visa credit and debit cards for Wallet via the existing ANZ GoMoney app; once done, the handset works in much the same way as a contactless card – complete with user-defined PIN which is to be entered for transactions above $80.
Any contactless terminal can accept payments from an Android smartphone; ANZ retail/business banking MD Fred Ohlsson said around 30 percent of the terminal fleet in New Zealand is contactless. However, “Don’t expect to be able to get rid of your cards just yet,” he cautioned, explaining that changes in payments systems take time as there is a large, complex ecosystem involved which has some inertia.
Importantly, ANZ noted that contactless card payments have proven a hit with consumers, providing a conceptual beachhead for user acceptance of smartphone payments.
The obvious question, at least from iStart’s perspective, is ‘what took you so long’, and a little insight was provided at the launch press event: while making a payment seems simple enough, it is in fact a complex, multi-point transaction which involves several parties and at least eight separate systems which have to be integrated to process the event.
Additionally, noted the bank’s head of digital channels Liz Maguire, the Android handset market is fragmented, to the extent even that every phone model has a different ‘sweet spot’ where its NFC token is located. “A mobile wallet was the No 1 request from ANZ goMoney customers when they were surveyed earlier this year,” she added.
Ohlsson described mobile wallets as the next evolution in payments which could, in the fullness of time, mean the end of physical wallets of cards and cash.
Visa country manager Marty Kerr said the next big era in payments will be the mass adoption of smartphones, tablets and wearable technology as the main way to pay. “We’re looking forward to seeing how Kiwis respond to the new ANZ goMoney Wallet and for the true potential of digital payment technology to be realised.”
More information including videos of how to use the ANZ goMoney Wallet.
