Contactless tech is changing the way we pay. In 2023, 93.4 per cent of all in-store card transactions up to £100 were contactless. Overall contactless spend was up 10.2% for the year compared to 2022.
These figures confirm what every retail, hospitality and leisure business – anywhere that needs to take in-person payments, in fact – already knows. Offering contactless options is now a non-negotiable.
But the possibilities of contactless technology don’t end with tap-and-pay. One business that is something of an evangelist for the rich potential of contactless is VMC Ltd. VMC is a payment solutions specialist and describes itself as “the cashless experts”. It’s also a POS systems supplier and an AURES partner.
We caught up with Laura Barwell, VMC’s Director of Business Development, to ask about some of the exciting ways they are utilising contactless tech to add value to POS deployments.
Exploring new possibilities
“As everyone knows by now, contactless technology is great for payments,” said Laura. “It is fast and efficient, it suits most customers. That doesn’t need tinkering with. But what we are trying to do at VMC is listen to people’s challenges, or the unusual idea you want to implement, and see how our technology can provide a solution. And that doesn’t just have to be around payments, it applies to loyalty, rewards, subscriptions, anything transactional between you and your customer base.”
In VMC’s view, all the key benefits of contactless payments – efficiency, speed, reduced admin, and ultimately a better customer experience – can be applied to many other processes across a business.
Laura explained why, in this context, loyalty schemes are a key focus for VMC. “Many retailers have established loyalty schemes which work really well,” she said. “But these schemes do sometimes cause operational challenges. No one wants the process to be difficult for staff or customers.
“This is where VMC can help. We can create bespoke solutions for existing loyalty schemes providing unique ways to redeem loyalty as well as valuable data to retailers. Similarly, we can create and manage subscription services that can be redeemed at point of sale or at a kiosk. Think of the high street coffee shop subscription where you pay monthly and get a numberof drinks a day and a discount on food. It’s just another approach to payment, and provides benefits to both the subscriber and retailer. We can do something similar for any product, across a range of environments including self-service kiosks and vending.
“In a different area, we work with corporate, education, distribution and medical clients with internal catering outlets for staff, and we create bespoke solutions that make the ordering and payment experience as seamless as you’d get in leading high street restaurants. This can include things like rewards, discounts, set amounts of money to spend each day and more, all managed via accounts and activated by card or mobile.
The message, then, is one of empowering people to do more with contactless – which in return helps businesses get more value from the POS terminals and their kiosks.
AURES and VMC will be at the Retail Technology Show at London’s Olympia on April 24th and 25th. VMC are exhibiting at Stand 5C01, with some AURES POS terminals and kiosks to showcase their solutions. So if you’re attending the show and would like to learn more about the possibilities of contactless, why not go along and say hi to the VMC team?