The pilot program for the mobile wallet Semble has been launched, with around 250 ‘piloteers’ making their first live payments using their smartphones.

Those trialling Semble are from Auckland and Wellington, and are Semble’s shareholders and people from stakeholder organisations.

Throughout the pilot program the trialists will be using the mobile wallet as their primary means of paying for goods and services.

They are testing the whole Semble experience, from downloading the app from Google Play, populating their wallets with live versions of their ASB and BNZ credit and debit cards, and then making payments.

Rob Ellis, Semble CEO, said that it has been a lot of hard work for all parties to get to this point, and that it is fantastic to be in full pilot.

“The fact that we’ve been able to successfully collaborate with multiple parties to give the customer this sort of choice and user experience is really satisfying,” he said.

The pilot program will provide a wealth of information that will assist in further refining Semble, with a strong focus on understanding what customers think and feel about the product, Ellis said.

Ellis said that the upcoming period provides adequate time to put the technology through its paces, and assess how it performs in the live environment across a range of devices and terminals.

The pilot phase is expected to run until early in 2015, with the commercial launch to follow.