Semble, a mobile payments joint venture launched by some of New Zealand's biggest banks and telcos last year, is shutting down its wallet app and changing business focus.
Telcos Vodafone, 2degrees, Telecom teamed up with bank-owned payments network Paymark on the joint venture nearly four years ago, promising to enable New Zealanders to make secure payments, collect loyalty points and use public transport with their mobile phones.
With ASB and BNZ onboard as banking partners, the service finally went live in March last year, enabling consumers to upload credit and debit cards and contactless transit card Snapper to the mobile wallet app.
In statement, the JV says that with immediate effect users will no longer be able to add new cards to the wallet. Existing cards already loaded will continue to operate until expiry.
It is understood that the service failed to gain traction with users and drive sufficient transaction volumes.
In a statement, Semble says it will continue to operate as a business venture and roll out new services in the future: "Even though we are discontinuing the current payments service now, Semble remains committed to creating other new services and is planning to extend capability to include for a more flexible, modular and future proofed technology platform which offers even more capability than today, enabling companies to digitise a wide range of wallet services for mobile devices."