Mobile phone purchase system being trialled

Alfred Naffah, country manager for Mastercard Photo / Paul Estcourt.

A system that enables purchases to be paid for with the tap of a mobile phone is being trialled by MasterCard Worldwide and ANZ.

Under the trial, some ANZ staff would be issued with either a contactless sticker or a memory card enabled with MasterCard's contactless technology PayPass.

The PayPass sticker could be attached to any phone type, while the memory card would be inserted into Blackberry devices, ANZ and MasterCard said in a statement today.

Participants in the trial would then be able to make purchases of up to $80 by simply tapping their device in front of a MasterCard PayPass terminal.

Westpac Stadium and Eden Park were the first retail locations to introduce the technology in this country, with merchants such as Hell Pizza, St Pierre's Sushi and Corporate Cabs to be included from July.

MasterCard New Zealand country manager Albert Naffah said the future of payments was undeniably linked to the mobile phone, with the technology already a success overseas.

- NZPA