Revolut has started piloting Revolut Pay with Smile, a checkout system that lets customers pay in store using facial recognition.

The pilot runs at three Kiss the Hippo cafés in London’s Bloomsbury, Chelsea and Soho from 24 to 26 September.

Merchants pay 0% processing fees on Pay with Smile transactions.

Customers who opt in through the Revolut app can pay by looking at the terminal.

The system compares their face with the selfie they took for identity checks when they first joined Revolut. If the two match, the payment goes through.

Revolut said transactions are encrypted end to end within its app. Merchants do not store customers’ personal data, according to the company.

The service runs on Revolut Register, a new two-screen point-of-sale system for hospitality venues.

It has a built-in eSIM, which is meant to keep terminals connected when a venue’s internet goes down.

Revolut’s own research found that independent UK venues spend an average of £875 a month on payment processing and infrastructure. The same research put the cost of terminal outages at £2,495 a year in lost revenue.

“By combining high-performance processing with facial recognition technology, we’ll replace outdated, fragmented tills with a hyper-efficient checkout experience designed to solve consumer and merchant pain points,”

said Alex Codina, General Manager of Merchant Payments at Revolut Business.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by Revolut via its LinkedIn.