Case Study

Where Wildlife Meets Smarter Payments

How Taronga Zoo replaced cash handling with sustainable wooden cards and a companion app, eliminating plastic, digitising cash, and giving a conservation organisation a payment system that matches its mission.

Book a Tour

Zero PVC

No Plastics in Card Materials

Cash to Digital

Cash Kiosk Conversion

365 Days

Year-Round Operations

The Wooden Payment Card

Cash Deposit to Digital Spending

Year-Round Ops, Not Seasonal Resets

Ticketing via Cash Kiosks

The Wooden Payment Card

A closed-loop payment card visitors collect on arrival: a branded keepsake that aligns with Taronga’s conservation mission.

The Wooden Payment Card

Wooden outer casing with no PVC compounds or plastics

Copper wired antenna and chip module

Synthetic rubber adhesive from natural glue

Screen printing with UV cured ink and natural oil coating

Developed in collaboration with Prosegur’s innovation team

Cash Deposit to Digital Spending

Cash-to-digital conversion solved the accessibility problem without compromising the visitor experience.

Cash Deposit to Digital Spending

Visitors collect a wooden card on arrival

Visit a cash kiosk to load and activate the card

Tap to pay at every F&B and retail outlet across the venue

Customers can still spend in cash within a cashless operation

Year-Round Ops, Not Seasonal Resets

Taronga needed a payment platform that runs continuously across 365 days of varying attendance.

Year-Round Ops, Not Seasonal Resets

Always-on infrastructure with year-round reliability

Handles quiet Tuesday mornings to sold-out school holiday weekends

No seasonal resets or fresh-start deployments

Built for the consistency permanent venues require

Ticketing via Cash Kiosks

Ticketing was brought into scope alongside the cashless card launch.

Ticketing via Cash Kiosks

Tickets can now be purchased with cash via the cash kiosks

Opens opportunities to scale across partner venues

Taronga Zoo wooden payment card presented in a green folder

How Taronga Zoo replaced cash handling with sustainable wooden cards, eliminating plastic, digitising cash, and delivering a payment system that matches its conservation mission.

“This week we went live with an absolute monster of a project that I’ve been chipping away at for the past 12 months. The challenge: how can Taronga Zoo continue its cashless operations, whilst still allowing customers to spend in cash? And how can we do this sustainably?”

Mark Kemp

Former Technology Projects Officer, Taronga Conservation Society