Worldline Partners Selfly Store on Contactless Vending Offering

Worldline has formed a partnership with intelligent vending machine company Selfly Store.

The collaboration, announced Tuesday (July 16), will see Worldline work with payment expert Antenor to integrate a contactless payment solution with Selfly’s machines, which are designed to provide an autonomous meal/snack solution for hotels, offices and other venues.

“Crafted by payment expert Antenor on Worldline’s full payment offer, the solution incorporates a series of unattended terminals, Worldline’s omni-channel acceptance platform and Worldline’s international acquiring solution,” the companies said in a news release.

“This flexible solution allows Selfly Store to deploy internationally with minimal efforts, providing access to sophisticated real-time reporting platforms and unparalleled visibility into revenues and allowing efficient monitoring of each transaction and all associated payouts,” the company added.

According to the release, the solution melds Antenor’s latest payment technology with Worldline’s services, making shopping more convenient for consumers and helping merchants increase their revenues.

For vending environments requiring a closed-loop payment system, the Antenor/Worldline solution can accommodate private cards linked to online wallets, with a built-in card-tokenization feature that lets Selfly Store establish loyalty programs and implement “blacklisting” functionality, the release said.

“Smart fridges are an excellent concept to help operators boost their sales and improve kiosk ROI,” said Nicolas Dejonghe, Worldline’s head of vending and adjacent markets. “They require specific payment features, such as additional authorisation for larger consumer baskets, to secure operator revenues. Worldline’s acceptance and acquiring full solution are a perfect fit to secure these payments across Europe.”

The partnership is happening at a time when — as PYMNTS wrote earlier this year — self-service has become a critical retail feature, even if good self-service options remain harder to find.

“Companies have made significant strides in recent years to increase the availability of self-service kiosks and other unattended payment options,” that report said. “Still, customers seek higher service and satisfaction as self-service channels evolve.”

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence finds that 81% of consumers said they want more self-service options at the businesses they frequent.

“Quantity alone is not enough, either: 36% said they want smarter unattended payment options. How businesses can fulfill that demand remains unclear, but consumers are interested in going further down the unattended path,” PYMNTS wrote.

One way retail businesses are addressing this demand is by employing both old and new technologies to improve unattended payments.

For instance, radio frequency identification (RFID), first used for inventory management, is now integrated into the checkout process — including by Selfly — while biometric solutions like Amazon One’s palm recognition have also gained popularity.