Revolut Trials Face-Based Payments at Three London Cafes

Revolut is testing payments authenticated by facial recognition at three Kiss the Hippo cafes in London. Its Pay with Smile pilot runs from September 24 through September 26 at the chain’s Bloomsbury, Soho and Chelsea locations, giving customers a short opportunity to make an in-person purchase without presenting a card or phone at the till.

Participation is optional. A Revolut customer first enables Pay with Smile in the Revolut app, then looks at a camera on a Revolut Register terminal when paying. The terminal compares the live face image with the selfie identity check completed when the customer opened a Revolut account, according to the company. Revolut has not presented the pilot as a citywide launch or a payment option available at all of its merchants.

The test brings an account-opening identity check into the checkout process. A customer who already went through Revolut’s onboarding can use the enrolled face as the means of confirming a transaction at a participating cafe. Revolut says the payment is authenticated through its app and that participating merchants do not store customers’ personal data.

Revolut says Pay with Smile transactions processed through Register carry zero processing fees for merchants. The rate is specific to that facial-payment method and does not apply to every transaction handled by Revolut Register. The company is using the trial to demonstrate the payment flow in a working retail setting, where enrollment, customer consent and terminal recognition have to come together at checkout.

Face-based payment is already being tested in other physical venues. South Korea’s Toss and CGV have planned FacePay for cinema kiosks, allowing enrolled customers to buy tickets and concessions with a face scan. The London experiment also sits alongside work on other biometric payment methods: Handwave has expanded a Visa integration for palm payments at merchant terminals.

Revolut Register is a two-screen point-of-sale system with a built-in eSIM backup connection. During the pilot, customers who use Pay with Smile can buy a speciality coffee from a £1 menu and earn triple RevPoints on each transaction, according to Revolut. The offers are limited to the three participating Kiss the Hippo cafes.

Sources: Revolut

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By the ID Tech Editorial Team