Worldline Debuts Food Services Payment Suite

Worldline has introduced a new payment solution designed to embrace the restaurant industry’s digital transformation.

The French payments firm’s Food Service Payments Suite is designed to be an “enhanced, seamless and secure payment experience for the food and beverage industry,” particularly for quick-service restaurants, Worldline said Wednesday (Dec. 20).

As the company notes in a news release provided to PYMNTS, the restaurant sector — especially in Europe — is in the middle of innovation and technology-driven transformation.

“This has led to the creation of comprehensive, immersive experiences that bridge physical and digital, including not only augmented-reality menus and AI-driven meal recommendations, but also a seamless integration of the dining experience with digital platforms, all the way through to an almost unnoticeable act of payment,” Worldline said.

With the payments suite, Worldline says it aimed to encompass industry trends by incorporating digital solutions such as wallets, QR codes and in-app payments.

The offering also “integrates closely with the hardware and maintenance partners to offer more targeted and appropriate services and nurture a more loyal customer base,” the company said.

And the payments suite places more emphasis on customer engagement, especially at checkout, with “the use of data-driven analytics, often powered by AI” playing a key role, the news release said.

Worldline’s announcement comes at the tail end of a year that has seen the restaurant industry embrace new technology such as robotics, even though — as PYMNTS has written — diners have been somewhat hesitant about these innovations.

PYMNTS Intelligence’s exclusive report, “Connected Dining: The Robot Will Take Your Order Now,” showed that two-thirds said they were uninterested in robotics or automated systems preparing or cooking food, while 72% of consumers expressed no interest in having their food delivered by robotics or automated systems.

Still, automation is already becoming a crucial part of the industry. Data cited in the PYMNTS report “Inflation Puts Technology on the Menu for Restaurants,” created in collaboration with American Express, found that 76% of eateries were already employing automation in at least three areas of their business.

Another PYMNTS Intelligence report — “The Restaurant of the Future Is Open. Will Diners Bite” — showed that quick-service restaurants expect that 51% of tasks will be automated by 2025, while full-service restaurants anticipate that they’ll be automating 27% of tasks.