The extension if interconnectedness and enabling payment to be integrated within the experience continues to advance. Just as summoning a car and being transported integrates payment at the same time portending an era of driverless transport, a similar approach is being tested in the dining sphere.
MasterCard’s integration into Pepper will first be done by a number of Pizza Hut restaurants in Asia that will use the robots to take orders. Softbank initially debuted plans for Pepper in 2015, predicting it will be “a companion for the elderly, a teacher of schoolchildren and an assistant in retail shops and offices.” Pepper, which Softbank claims to understand emotions, costs $1,600, along with monthly fees and insurance costs.
Mercator expect removing or minimizing payment behavior within an activity, or integrating the transaction to such a degree that it takes place with an initial approval will increasingly become the norm. The integration of Pepper’s capability to procure pizza follows the release of Domino’s Pizza app enables users to order a pizza simply by opening the self-same app, having been preselected and with a payment method on file. To read more about on-demand payment innovations one may expect this year please see Mercator Advisory Group Emerging Technologies Service’s publication, From Card-on-File to On-Demand Payments: New Payment Model and Strategies For Payment Providers.
Overview by Joseph Walent, Senior Analyst, Emerging Technologies at Mercator Advisory Group
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