Telecom New Zealand, Auckland Transport and the Westpac Bank in collaboration with Gemalto, Thales and Paymark are to launch a trial of using mobile phones to pay for public transport via near field communications.
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The trial will be the first in the world for the Thales NFC application It will be deployed throughout Auckland Transport's smart card ticketing system, HOP, before being made available globally to all networks and banks.
The trial is expected to enable participants to pay for Auckland's buses, trains and ferries through their mobile phones. The phone will communicate with the HOP terminal to complete the transaction without having to swipe or insert a card.
Participants in the trial will use a Westpac credit card to top up a Telecom XT mobile service prepaid account, using Paymark's infrastructure. Gemalto will provide the essential network infrastructure required for near-field communications including its Trusted Service Management platform (TSM).
Earlier this month Telecom, Paymark and the country's two other mobile network operators, Vodafone and 2Degrees, announced a joint venture to launch a TSM platform that would provide a common solution for the New Zealand market "to encourage consumer uptake and avoid confusion."
The said that that the technology and applications used in the trial would ultimately be available to all New Zealanders, across all mobile operators, via the TSM.
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