Snapper comes to Auckland

This morning I was invited to the Snapper launch in Auckland, on behalf of Geekzone.  Wellingtonians are well familiar with Snapper, but it's not yet very well known in Jaffaland or elsewhere in the country. Snapper is a contactless payment system, allowing you to pay for buses, taxis, and at retailers simply by passing your Snapper card over a reader.  It speeds up paying for goods or services as there is no need for entering a pin, and the money is taken off the card immediately, so it's perfect for doing payments where network connectivity may not be available.

After a mix-and-mingle, we were given a short presentation by Miki Szikszai (@mikiszikszai), the CEO of Snapper, who spoke about some impressive numbers - 160k Snappers out in the wild, 38 million transactions, readers in 400 buses, 2,000 taxis and many retailers (complete media release here). 

Each attendee was given a Snapper Mini and lanyard, with a $50 balance - a very generous offer in my view.  The launch was at No 1 Queen St cafe who already accept Snapper, and we were able to order coffee and food.  As well as this we could use our new Snapper cards to get our shoes shined, or order pretzels.  It was a great demonstration of how the technology works - I've never used Snapper, so it was really helpful to be able to use one.

Snapper is also ramping up their marketing in Auckland, with billboards all over the city, and buses covered with as well (just about got run over taking the photos below)

A great launch and I look forward to using my new shiny Snapper at more and more retailers, as they sign up.

All my photos from the event are here.