Innovation award category winner: Mastercard Labs rolls out ‘pay-at-table’ technology

The future of dining out looks certain to involve polyglot robot waiters who can tell you anything you need to know about the menu and general nutrition, and can even enjoy a joke with the kids.

For now, though, Mastercard Labs – the Dublin-based innovation brain of the credit card giant – is starting slowly, rolling out its “pay-at-table” technology empowering customers to get out of the restaurant quickly and without the stress of waiting for a bill.

They call this, explains Oran Cummins, group head of research and development, the "10-minute problem". The average estimated time spent trying to get the attention of staff, wait for the bill, work out the split and complete the transaction is something Mastercard Labs believes we can all do without.

“We are trying to eliminate that completely,” he says. It will even work out the tip.

Pay-at-table is a service within the QKR app which allows customers to order and pay for goods through MasterCard’s digital MasterPass Wallet.

It is the base technology (the application programming interface, or “API”) that Mastercard plans to sell as a service in its own right so restaurants can create their own systems around it.

It is not about Mastercard payments; any card will do. It is about developing and owning a cultural shift in how restaurant bills are managed.

Customers “check-in” to the restaurants point-of-sale system by inputting a code. From then on they can monitor orders on a device such as a phone or smartwatch, reorder during the meal, keep an eye on the cost, divide the bill and pay. Everyone with a device can check-in and participate.

Although operational in a handful of Irish restaurants, it is being launched mainly in the UK where the aim is to reach critical mass in a market with more chains.

So far these include Zizzi, Ask Italian, Wagamama and Carluccio's, with more to come. About 600 restaurants are now actively using the technology.

“We want to get it to the point where pay-at-table can be activated in any restaurant anywhere in the world,” says Cummins.

Its spread will rely on an organic awareness of a new generation of diners, promotion by the restaurants themselves and word of mouth. Marketing is minimal.

Pay-at-table is the latest concept from Mastercard Labs, established in Dublin in 2010 (evolving from the acquisition of Orbiscom in 2008) using high-end developers to work on innovative projects around future payment systems.

In a world where smartphone immersion is an increasing phenomenon and, for some, a source of irritation, Cummins dismisses the potential for concern around increasing their need at the dinner table.

“I think that’s happening right now,” he says. “I think we will evolve from that. People will realise: I am actually having a more compelling time here with my friends than I am on my phone.”

The idea is also to give waiting staff more time to engage with customers and talk about the menu.

Electronic ordering and payment systems are well established in the restaurant world but Mastercard has its eye on the future.

It has recently completed a deal with Yum, the owner of Pizza Hut, and later this year in Japan the groundbreaking interactive "humanoid", affectionately known as Pepper, will begin serving its customers.

It is a move designed to counter the difficulties in finding people to work in waiting jobs.

“It’s actually quite cool and kids love them,” says Cummins, but the move brings with it a sense that pay-at-table is just the beginning.

– MARK HILLIARD