Snapper Issues 100,000th Contactless Smartcard

Snapper Issues Its 100,000th Contactless Smartcard Device.

Wellington, 04 February 2010

Snapper – New Zealand’s leading contactless ticketing and payment system – today announced that it has issued its 100,000th smartcard device. Snapper has achieved the key milestone in just over 18 months since launching in Wellington in July 2008. 

Miki Szikszai, CEO at Snapper, says. “I’m thrilled that Snapper has hit the ton in such a short timeframe.  This really proves that Snapper has been adopted by the masses in the Wellington market. In some overseas markets it has taken twice as long to achieve similar market adoption rates, so our confidence is high as we progress with making Snapper available right throughout New Zealand”.

Looking ahead to 200,000.

“Its great to hit a milestone like this, we’ve taken time to recognise it, and we are already working on how we achieve the next 100,000.  Recently we have seen strong interest from the student market with the start of the new school year. Students and parents alike are seeing the benefits of Snapper as a cost effective way to travel and a quick and convenient way to pay for lunch at the school tuck shop or local food and convenience stores.

“The development shop has also been busy over summer and some of the services that are making Snapper more accessible to more people include:
    •    A trial with East by West Ferries in Wellington.  Since December, customers have been able to purchase ferry tickets using Snapper from the Ferry Office.  From March 2010 customers will be able to use their Snapper to tag-on and tag-off the ferry and make on-board purchases.
    •    Snapper has developed a prototype self-service kiosk, where customers can receive an instant balance or top-up their Snapper using EFTPOS.  The kiosk has been available for customers to trial at Snapper HQ since late December. 
    •    Even more retailers now accept Snapper.  Customers can pay for their coffee, cakes, dinner and drinks at Felix, Wellington’s best people watching café.  Customers can now use their Snapper to pay for their movie tickets, food and drinks at Reading cinemas in Courtenay Place.  There’s even a special 30% discounted rate on mainstream tickets when paying by Snapper every Monday.“

“These developments have been received very positively by Snapper customers and our partners.  We have a lot more planned for 2010, making Snapper even easier and more convenient - I’m excited to see how our customers will respond to these products and services and how quickly we will get to 200,000.”

About Snapper.

Snapper has created a brand new payment category in New Zealand, based on small value payments using contactless smartcards. Over 100,000 Snappers have been issued, generating over 17 million transactions, across over 400 buses and 200 retailers in New Zealand. Snapper offers customers integrated ticketing and instant small value payments. The Snapper system is 99.99% accurate, providing valuable journey data that can be used to plan better transport services for passengers. 
Snapper Services Limited was formed in 2006 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Infratil Limited.

snapper.co.nz

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