After testing mobile order-and-pay at Tim Hortons cafes and Burger King restaurants for nearly two months, Restaurant Brands International is preparing to launch the app throughout Canada in the spring.
RBI conducted tests at 25 Tim Horton locations in Ontario and 25 Burger King restaurants in Miami.
The parent company of the coffee shops and quick-service restaurants developed the app through the efforts of Brewster App, a company RBI acquired in 2015, according to a report from The Canadian Press.
A cup of coffee is displayed for a photograph at a Tim Hortons Inc. restaurant in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014. Burger King Worldwide Inc. agreed to acquire Tim Hortons Inc. for about C$12.5 billion ($11.4 billion) in a deal that creates the third-largest fast-food company and moves its headquarters to Canada. Photographer: Ben Nelms/Bloomberg
Ben Nelms/Bloomberg
The expansion is expected to include about 4,000 Tim Hortons and Burger King locations in Canada.
Starbucks remains the standard bearer for mobile order-and-pay in the U.S., and the coffee giant launched its app in Canada in late 2015. The company has reported that as much as 20% of its peak transaction volume at top-performing stores is occurring through mobile order-and-pay.
For nearly three years, Tim Hortons has been developing mobile payments, advancing Host Card Emulation and virtual Near Field Communication technology, while also being among the first to integrate its app with Apple's Wallet, then called Passbook.
In that same time frame, Burger King also introduced a mobile order-and-pay app in its U.S. locations, offering a technology in which users could load rewards onto a virtual card within the app.
Five years ago, Burger King worked with Firethorn Mobile, a unit of Qualcomm Inc., to develop a mobile QR code-based system featuring the BK Mobile Crown Card, a virtual prepaid card.
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