Snappers soon to get top-up fee

Thursday, 21 November 2024

Bus, train and ferry users topping up their Snapper cards will soon be charged extra, with the Greater Wellington Regional Council no longer absorb bank processing fees.

Metlink is introducing a 1.5% credit and debit card processing fee on Snapper apps and self-service Snapper kiosks from December. The extra cost is the merchant service charge from banks when cards are used.

This comes after bus, train and ferry fares increased by 10% in July, with a peak adult fare increasing 18 cents to $1.60 across Metlink’s 14 zones.

Regional council chairperson Daran Ponter and Thomas Nash, who heads transport committee, both stressed their hand hand was forced into pushing the merchant fee on to travellers, with Ponter saying the council had been asked to increase fare revenues from transport.

He likened the fee to restaurants asking customers to pay extra for PayWave, saying that, over the previous years, GWRC had been absorbing the cost.

Nash said, now that so many people were topping up their Snapper cards through their phone apps, it had become impossible for the council to absorb the merchant fees.

The council has previously estimated a $134m shortfall in transport and infrastructure funding over the next three years, after being allotted $3.3 billion in the National Land Transport Plan.

“We have to pass that cost on now, which is not great, but I think, as everybody knows, the public transport budgets are extremely tight. So we are having to carefully watch our costs. That’s the reality,” Nash said.

He said there were still options to top up Snappers without the merchant fee through a kiosk, although he acknowledged this be inconvenient for some.

Snapper users will not be charged when using a debit card and selecting cheque/savings at a kiosk.

The council preferred not to pass on costs or increase fares, Nash said – but the alternative was increase fares for everyone, which seemed unfair.

“I think it's probably more fair to charge people directly for that top-up service [so they can] try to avoid it.”

Ponter said, over the next six to nine months, as the council looked at the next annual plan, there would be discussions of another fare increase, but also of potentially reducing costs by reducing services.

“There could be some pain across the network as we try to recalibrate what we're providing and the cost of what we're providing to meet the government's - not even expectations, but the government’s directive - that commuters should pay more and rate payers should pay less.”