Apple Pay And Vending Machines

Apple Pay has hit the vending machine market.

VendScreen, a developer of vending industry cashless payment technology, announced Wednesday (Nov. 12), in a news release that the company’s touchscreen devices now support Apple Pay and will be available to current VendScreen device installations at no additional costs or hardware upgrade. The update is anticipated to be available on all devices over the next several weeks, the company said. VendScreen currently has more than 6,000 touchscreen payment devices in use across the United States.

“VendScreen touchscreen devices were engineered to be part of a payment technology ecosystem, enabling our customers to cost-effectively transform their existing legacy machines into intelligent, interactive retail outlets,” Dave Grano, president and CEO of VendScreen, said in a company news release. “We integrated VendScreen technology with Apple Pay to expand our support of mobile payment apps enabled by NFC technology, which already includes compatibility with Google Wallet and SoftCard.”

VendScreen said this move aligns its company with the industry trends of providing more options to go cashless. Citing a market research study conducted by Javelin Strategy & Research, VendScreen reported that the number of cash transactions by consumers is expected to drop to 23 percent by 2017.

“A majority of these cashless transactions are still enabled with credit and debit cards. VendScreen touchscreen devices accept credit and debit cards, and the technology enables operators to offer a modern, personalized purchase experience that provides consumers with the information and options they want, such as cashless payment, nutrition information, instant help and credit codes for refunds, all for about the same price as basic card swipe payment devices,” the company said.