Automated self-checkout hit retailers in Japan last year, and soon the UK could score a slice of the IoT fintech action.
A London-based start-up has raised £1.65m seed funding for its “scan, pay, leave” mobile fintech service. MishiPay aims to kick-start Britain’s IoT retail connectivity with its personal self-checkout payment system.
Founders of the fintech start-up point to the fact that $200bn is lost in sales globally each year owing to queuing. MishiPay aims to cut queue waiting times for low-priced items with its rapid mobile payment method, which also informs users of available offers or discounts. Software engineers at MishiPay say the transaction time is just 15 seconds.
The patent-pending tech enables a customer to scan the barcode of the item they are holding, pay for it on their smartphone and walk out of the shop. Developers promise a personalised shopping experience with the option to “tap on an item to view details and read exclusive Stories of your product”. Details of manufacture origin are also included for the ethically-minded customer.
MishiPay co-founder Mustafa Khanwala told TechCrunch: “We are solving the problem of the divide between the in-store and e-commerce experience and aiming to bridge that and bring the best of both worlds together for shoppers and stores.
“I understand though that this is a humongous task of tackling a $25 trillion industry and so the aim is to start by first solving one of the biggest problems that have plagued the in-store checkout experience for decades: queuing.”
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Edward Westenberg, Business Development Manager at Cisco, who has partnered with the MishiPay team, said: “By combining frictionless mobile payment at the moment of truth with automated transaction verification, retailers will benefit from an increase in impulse buying, while Shoppers will love not having to queue. Mishipay is the first to make this unique concept a reality.”
Apple has already made waves in the mobile fintech sector, introducing contactless Apple Pay in June 2015. This week, the firm launched Apple Pay Cash, enabling iOS 11.2 users in the US to transfer petty cash to friends over the iMessage and Wallet apps.
Android versions are available through several major banks including Barclaycard, HSBC, Lloyds, BoS and more. However, none yet offer the Internet of Things connectivity with barcode scans. Evidently, if the mobile pay sector takes off in stores, battery life will have to keep pace to support the trend. One advantage of a plastic card is, of course, that it will not run out of juice.
