East By West ferries carries up to 2,000 passengers each week between Eastbourne and Queen’s Wharf in Wellington’s CBD.

According to East By West managing director Jeremy Ward, most of the passengers are commuters looking to cut down travelling times and avoid the motorway into the city. “We were rushed off our feet every morning and so we looked for a faster and simpler method of payment to ensure we could get everybody ticketed during the half hour journey across the harbour,” he says.

East By West is now using a VeriFone 3600 Mobile EFTPOS terminal from EFTPOS Specialists, which is connected to Telecom’s 027 network to provide a speedier and more convenient payment option for passengers. Passengers can pay by concession cards, but the business also accepts cash and credit card transactions. Previously, EFTPOS was unavailable and credit transactions were conducted with an old ‘zip-zap’ machine.

“Mobile EFTPOS has made everything much easier,” says Ward. “Since getting the terminal, we’ve definitely noticed a decline in the number of cash and cheque transactions. I’d estimate 80% of our tickets are now bought through our Mobile EFTPOS terminal, which shows how much people rely on EFTPOS for payment.

“Mobile EFTPOS also lets us ticket people faster, which means we can get through the whole boat before docking at the end of the trip. In turn, this means the passengers can head straight off to work on arriving in the CBD without having to wait to pay us.

“It’s also made administrative life a lot easier for our staff and accountants. The Mobile EFTPOS transactions go straight into the bank, which means better cash flow for our business and less time spent dealing with zip-zap receipts in the office, says Ward. “We couldn’t do without Mobile EFTPOS now.

For more information
Telecom New Zealand
www.telecom.co.nz

August 2005