Gift certificates and gift cards are going virtual, in which mode they are becoming money. Where might they go in the future?
These are the personal opinions of Consult Hyperion and its guests and should not be misunderstood as representing the opinion of its clients or suppliers. To discuss how any of the technologies discussed in this post can benefit your business, please contact Consult Hyperion.
Taxis are a such an interesting case study when it comes to exploring the future of mass-market retail payments that I can’t help but be fascinated by them and their use of new technology.
These are the personal opinions of Consult Hyperion and its guests and should not be misunderstood as representing the opinion of its clients or suppliers. To discuss how any of the technologies discussed in this post can benefit your business, please contact Consult Hyperion.
We’d all, I’m sure, prefer a world in which children did not have access to corrosive and nauseating material that undermines our civilised society. But how can we stop children from seeing MTV and the Daily Mail? The government has given up on this, I’m afraid, and has instead decided to try to stop them from seeing porn.
These are the personal opinions of Consult Hyperion and its guests and should not be misunderstood as representing the opinion of its clients or suppliers. To discuss how any of the technologies discussed in this post can benefit your business, please contact Consult Hyperion.
There has been a lot of discussion about using Host Card Emulation (HCE) to support EMV payments over Near-Field Communication (NFC) interfaces. But HCE can be used to support EMV payments over, essentially, any interface. As part of Consult Hyperion’s prototyping programme, we developed a working (ie, using EMV data) proof-of-concept demonstrator (running on Android and iPhone) for paying with HCE over Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and showed it at the UK Cards Association last week. The demonstrator is so cool it superconducts.
These are the personal opinions of Consult Hyperion and its guests and should not be misunderstood as representing the opinion of its clients or suppliers. To discuss how any of the technologies discussed in this post can benefit your business, please contact Consult Hyperion.
Bitcoin may never be the best retail payments mechanism, but that doesn’t matter, because retail payments aren’t really what it is all about.
These are the personal opinions of Consult Hyperion and its guests and should not be misunderstood as representing the opinion of its clients or suppliers. To discuss how any of the technologies discussed in this post can benefit your business, please contact Consult Hyperion.
One of the things that a digital wallet can do better than a leather one is manage receipts.
These are the personal opinions of Consult Hyperion and its guests and should not be misunderstood as representing the opinion of its clients or suppliers. To discuss how any of the technologies discussed in this post can benefit your business, please contact Consult Hyperion.
Legal businesses want electronic payments. No two ways about it.
These are the personal opinions of Consult Hyperion and its guests and should not be misunderstood as representing the opinion of its clients or suppliers. To discuss how any of the technologies discussed in this post can benefit your business, please contact Consult Hyperion.
Contactless is not only quicker and easier than chip and PIN, it’s quicker and easier than notes and coins. It’s taking us one step closer to cashlessness. Hurrah!
These are the personal opinions of Consult Hyperion and its guests and should not be misunderstood as representing the opinion of its clients or suppliers. To discuss how any of the technologies discussed in this post can benefit your business, please contact Consult Hyperion.
We went off to Britain’s first robopub to have a pie and a pint and to watch the Blues demolish West Ham. Oh, and to see next-generation hospitality retailing in action.
By happy coincidence, the evening that we decided to go and try out Britain’s first robopub – The Thirsty Bear in Southwark – solely in the pursuit of retail payments knowledge, and incurred certain entertainment expenses wholly and necessarily in connection with our principal business, was the evening that Manchester City were playing their League Cup semi-final second leg against West Ham. Perfect. We had a lovely pint or two, an excellent helping of haddock and chips with New Labour guacamole (or mushy peas, as the dish is known in the far North) and excellent company and conversation for the night. And as if we couldn’t have made the event even more English had we tried, the footie was live on the big screen in the upstairs lounge.
The first thing that you will notice about The Thirsty Bear is that the tables have one iPad and two beer taps (one bitter, one lager) on them. The two are interconnected in an Internet of Grog, as will be revealed shortly. In the centre of the table is small credit-card sized recess. Here’s how it all works…
When you go in, you give them a payment card and they give you a contactless card, called a “Tab”. I assume they auth the card at that point but forgot to ask. You find a table and sit down and put your Tab in the recess in the centre of the table. At this point the table is activated and you can either pull your own pint from the on-table taps (the iPd displays as flow meter so you can see how much you are pouring) or you can use the iPad on a rotating mount in the centre of the table to order food, drinks and sundries. The iPad showed you customer ratings for the ales on offer and we could have punched up a couple of pints of wallop but we preferred the time-honoured method of asking me in host to recommend beverages. He suggested real ale for the men and white wine or a fruit-based cocktail for the ladies, so we went with the darker of Windsor & Eton Canberras on offer. I can personally attest to its quality.
If you go to another table, you can buy the drinks there by putting your Tab down. Similarly, if its someone else’s round at the table, you pick up your Tab and they put down theirs. Whatever is ordered/pumped at the table is added to the Tab. Simple. The table tablet has other functionality, aside from Facebook and Twitter access. A couple of twitter correspondents asked if there was a pub quiz or similar and there wasn’t, although I mentioned this to the software guys and they agreed this might be a good idea. It did have a jukebox app connected to the pub sound system but, oddly, it didn’t have any Hawkwind on it.
We then chose some food from the attractive and well-presented screens. A great system, especially because the menus are updated in real time so as they sell-out of various dishes the menu reflects this. I can see that, if properly handled, the use of differential pricing might be a very interesting development.
A great pub with great beer, great food and great technology. When we were chatting about it afterwards, a couple of people did wonder why they bothered with the Tab card, since everyone in the pub had a smartphone (so an HCE pub app would have done the trick) and most of them would have had a contactless card as well, so why not just use those? I expect they’re right and in time the tablets and the card will probably vanish. But for the time being, this is a pretty convenient way to order and pay.
I had the opportunity to chat to the manager of the pub and he told me that 55% of sales come through the tablets and 45% over the bar. He was very enthusiastic about the infrastructure. These are tough times for pubs in the UK but here they have year-on-year growth in sales. The manager attributed this to uplift at the tables (especially amongst groups after work or watching the football) and more room at the bar (since the bar is not as crowded there is more walk-in trade). I liked it a lot. We’ll be back.
These are the personal opinions of Consult Hyperion and its guests and should not be misunderstood as representing the opinion of its clients or suppliers. To discuss how any of the technologies discussed in this post can benefit your business, please contact Consult Hyperion.
The Target breach will encourage the US to adopt EMV, but it’s not a magic bullet. However, the breach may have wider implications for the future of retail transactions than EMV adoption.
These are the personal opinions of Consult Hyperion and its guests and should not be misunderstood as representing the opinion of its clients or suppliers. To discuss how any of the technologies discussed in this post can benefit your business, please contact Consult Hyperion.
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