Revolut Pilots Facial Recognition Payments in UK
AI-generated image · US National Wire
The fintech firm is testing a 'Pay with Smile' system at select London coffee shops to eliminate checkout friction and merchant processing fees.
Revolut has launched a pilot program in the United Kingdom introducing a facial recognition payment system dubbed "Pay with Smile," according to reporting from Engadget. The system is currently being tested at Kiss the Hippo coffee locations in the Soho, Chelsea, and Bloomsbury neighborhoods of London.
The technology operates via Revolut Register, a new hospitality point-of-sale (POS) hardware system featuring two screens intended to integrate banking, payments, and floor operations for merchants. According to Engadget, the system verifies a customer's identity by comparing biometric authentication data against selfies provided during the initial sign-up process.
From a cost perspective, Revolut states that the system carries no processing fees for merchants. Alex Codina of Revolut stated that the goal is to replace "outdated, fragmented tills" with a "hyper-efficient checkout experience" to address pain points for both consumers and merchants.
Regarding data privacy, Engadget reports that Revolut processes all personal data within its own proprietary application environment and does not share it. The company further notes that facial "embeddings" used for transactions are deleted immediately following a confirmed sale and are not stored on-site by the merchants.
While Revolut is introducing this to the UK market, Engadget notes that similar biometric systems have appeared previously in Asia, including Alibaba's Alipay "Smile to Pay" launched in 2017 at Hong Kong KFCs and Tencent's "Frog Pro" unveiled in 2019.