A payment terminal maker and a provider of restaurant software are breaking bread to promote payment by smartphones.
VeriFone Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., is working with Micros Systems Inc. of Columbia, Md., to provide the "first practical NFC communication service" for restaurants, said Michael L. Russo, Micros' chief technology officer.
Though few phones with built-in near-field communication chips are available to U.S. consumers, some observers expect that market to grow in the coming years. Once the phones become widely available, diners and waitstaff could bring their mobile devices within a few centimeters of each other to initiate the transaction, Russo said.
Bringing smartphone payments to restaurants is important for the payment form because once consumers get accustomed to paying with phones at places like restaurants, they will want to pay for everything that way, a VeriFone spokesman said.
Moreover, consumers generally would not want to hand over their devices and watch restaurant employees take their phones to a back room to make a transaction, the spokesman said. The partnership's technology eliminates such complications by allowing transactions to be made at the table, he said.
Besides allowing smartphone payments, the technology helps restaurants automate, Russo said. Restaurant employees could use the system to take orders, relay the orders to the kitchen, control inventory and create business reports, he said.
Employees also may use devices for "line busting," the term for taking orders as customers stand in line at the point of sale, Russo said.
The NFC-enabled applications also will redeem electronic coupons, VeriFone said. The integrated software relies on the VeriFone Payware Mobile Enterprise POS system, which adapts smartphones and personal digital assistants to accept payments, VeriFone said.
Payware uses a PIN debit keypad that helps merchants lower transactions costs, and it scans bar codes for inventory control, VeriFone said.
VeriFone and Micros said their system will become available in the second half of this year. They have been working together since 2007 on pay-at-the-table mobile devices that waitstaff use to swipe cards, Russo said.
