< PreviousWhat’s more, customers want more options for not just how they pay, but also where. Ordering at outdoor terminals and self-service kiosks is becoming more popular. Plus, some restaurants have front-of-house staff take orders and process payments on tablets that can function as mobile POS terminals while customers wait in line. This keeps the queue and food orders moving during busy times, such as lunchtime. This means QSRs also need infrastructure in place that allows them to securely accept and process payments from a variety of locations. 3 IoT in the Kitchen Many food equipment manufacturers offer kitchen units that connect to smart devices via internet connectivity. While some stores have added connected kitchen devices here and there over the years, the QSR sector has barely scratched the surface of IoT in the kitchen. That is likely to change soon. Smart kitchen devices can track a variety of cooking and equipment data, ‘talk’ to each other with minimal human intervention and connect to management and POS systems. They can trigger alerts for preventive equipment maintenance or repairs, more accurately manage inventory and stock, streamline food preparation, and more. As the pandemic highlighted the importance of running a lean operation, more restaurants may begin to invest in connected units to create efficiencies and reduce costs. 4 Ghost Kitchens Ghost kitchens, or satellite kitchens, allow brands to prepare delivery orders away from individual stores. This helps each location reduce costs on utilities, equipment operations, staff and more, and provide takeout and delivery service without opening a storefront. Some QSR brands within the same restaurant group are banding together to consolidate their delivery options to a single offsite location, while other ghost kitchens have popped up as a single space that houses a host of independent operators and brands who have one thing in common: they’re all looking to save money while streamlining the delivery experience. Finding a network to support the trends The common theme among all of these trends? They add more complexity to a QSR’s operation — and they need more from a QSR’s network. More devices, more digital payment options and more locations add up to more traffic on a store’s communications network, with more network bandwidth needed. Smart and connected devices, with additional points of interaction to and from apps or internet breakout, create new network security threats. For example, an unsecured digital menu board connected to the network can act as a backdoor. Spinning up ghost kitchens and supporting omnichannel payments likewise will require an ability to extend network connectivity across a wider area. For a QSR business to implement the technologies needed to capitalise on these trends, it needs an agile, modernised comms network with the security that supports and enhances new digital transformation requirements. One option for supporting such networking requirements is a secure software-defined wide- area network (SD-WAN). SD-WANs are more responsive and resilient than traditional MPLS or other legacy networks. They can improve application performance across a network by dynamically managing and prioritising network traffic. With the right SD-WAN, QSRs can gain a range of benefits, including: • Better network performance: SD-WAN can improve network uptime, performance and redundancy, so a business can support new digital strategies that require connectivity while also prioritising business-critical applications like payments. • Scalability: An integrated SD-WAN solution allows QSRs to dynamically scale bandwidth capacity, including across different locations, based on specific requirements via advanced networking functionality. • Reduced costs: Replacing low-bandwidth, high-cost MPLS or traditional WANs with broadband connections can lower costs while adding the bandwidth needed to support new digital use cases. Burger DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION 20KIOSK AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE MAGAZINEDIGITAL TRANSFORM ATION The events of the recent past revealed some important lessons about what strategies and technologies support business resilience and drive digital transformation 21 KIOSK AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE MAGAZINE King Brazil began rolling out SD-WAN in early 2020 and saw lower WAN costs by transitioning off MPLS connections to a hybrid WAN using multiple broadband links. • Greater agility in the face of change: By layering SD-WAN over broadband connectivity, everything can be connected at the network level: multiple stores, the cloud, a corporate headquarters and data centres. Once the network is properly deployed and configured, provisioning and securely connecting new locations (including ghost kitchens and pop-ups) can be done in days rather than weeks, giving QSRs the flexibility and agility to quickly pivot to new strategies as needed. • Improved network security: SD-WANs allow a unified security solution to be deployed and managed across all locations and devices within a brand’s environment. Look for an SD-WAN with best-in-class security protocols like next-generation stateful firewalls (including IPSEC VPN tunnels), anti-virus features, URL filtering and TLS packet inspection. An option that provides a higher level of security is a fully managed SD-WAN. In this scenario, a provider actively monitors threats and keeps an eye on network peripherals — all the data going back and forth, and what devices are using them — which removes the onus of network management and security from a QSR. • Secure, compliant digital payments: Some SD-WAN solutions available today have been designed to incorporate PCI DSS requirements, allowing QSRs to securely connect all types of payment options and protect customers’ card data. Selecting an Unattended Payments Solution While SD-WAN can provide a secure network backbone for new digital initiatives as well as digital payments, QSRs also need a payments solution that reduces cash management issues for drive-thrus while supporting a wider range of unattended (e.g. mobile app; website/e- commerce; self-service kiosks) payment options for ghost kitchens and pop-up locations. With an unattended payment solution, QSRs can connect POS, kiosks, in-store applications, mobile apps, and other remote payment devices to the payment’s community, while providing customers with a fast, convenient and frictionless payment experience. QSRs can gain: • Operational efficiencies. Stores can deliver a frictionless buying experience for customers with multi-channel payment acceptance via cards or mobile wallets, and swift and secure transaction processing. • Improved cash flow. Payments go directly to the QSR’s bank, improving cash flow and eliminating the manual effort of cash handling. • Improved security. Unattended solutions with EMV-certified terminals and P2PE validation ensure the secure transport of payments. Technology for a New Future The challenges resulting from the pandemic will continue to impact QSRs long after the world finally gets the virus under control. Yet the events of the recent past also revealed some important lessons about what strategies and technologies support business resilience and drive digital transformation, as well as where a store might need to invest more time, thought and money. While trends may come and trends may go, the technology infrastructure that allows a business to become more agile and adaptable, and scale up and down as needed, will help with long-term survival and drive growth — even in a volatile environment.MOBILE OPPORTUNITIES 22KIOSK AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE MAGAZINET o cater to the uplift, restaurants, pubs and cafés have had to change their business delivery approach. Some businesses have turned to third-party delivery platforms such as Deliveroo, Uber Eats or Just Eat. In fact, Deliveroo recently announced plans to extend its services into around 100 new towns and cities and expand its reach in 150 areas it already operates in. However, using these market-leading delivery platforms can be prohibitively expensive for some businesses. This has fuelled the growth of alternative mobile ordering and marketing software companies that tailor their expertise to your businesses offering. Companies like App4 and StoreKit provide cloud kitchen online ordering solutions that can be supported by a versatile mobile point of sale (mPOS) printer. So, what are the benefits of creating your own online store? You can: • Connect with your customers directly using in-house marketing and delivery. • Take on your own delivery to have better visibility of the service. • Create a stronger relationship with customers, lowering the risk of them moving to competitors. • Develop a cost-effective alternative to third- party delivery services. • Understand where customers are being reached. Some solutions include a marketing dashboard that identifies where traffic and sales originate – social media website etc. This approach, or a click and collect alternative, can be applied to other establishments such as specialist shops, boutique outlets, coffee shops and food trucks. Versatile mobile point of sale receipt printers are designed to support this. Compact and easy to use options include network tethering, allowing the printer to provide an internet connection to the tablet over cable. Not having to rely on Wi-Fi means potential connection dropouts are avoided so orders can be processed effectively, minimising errors and delivering the best customer service. Other user-friendly features include a near-end sensor, that enables paper changeovers to be made at the best time, keeping downtime to a minimum, ‘Sync and Charge’ for tablet device connection, delivering power and print data over a single cable and USB A ports for simple connection of peripherals. While they responsively print the receipts the receipt printers can also enable operations to add another level of customer engagement with the addition of tailored offers and vouchers. This promotes conversations and customer engagement, builds relationships and encourages repeat orders. All of which support business health and wealth. MOBILE OPPORTUNITIES HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF MOBILE OPPORTUNITIES TO DRIVE GROWTH One of the many trends that Covid-19 has accelerated has been the increase in takeaway service adoption. Delivery orders rose almost 400% in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019. DAYLE GUY PRODUCT MANAGER EPSON (UK) LTD 23 KIOSK AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE MAGAZINES o what do these payments look like in action for kiosk operators and payment system integrators as adoption accelerates and contactless payment limits in the UK increase? Take it to the limit With banks and retailer associations pushing hard, it seems that an almost doubling of the contactless limit is inevitable later in 2021. But is this all good? During the early part of the pandemic, the contactless payment limit was increased from £30 to £45. In January this year, the UK Financial Conduct Authority consulted the payments industry on whether the contactless limit should be increased again, to £100 or £120. Retailers love contactless payments. This payment option is fast, reduces queues and retailers are not liable for most fraud if someone uses a stolen card. This is because contactless transactions, accepted on an approved, bank- certified terminal are deemed to be as secure as Chip and PIN. The merchant is indemnified through the liability shift, and it is the banks (issuers) that have to take the hit. The banks are clearly willing to accept this greater liability because the higher limit enables greater cardholder convenience and presumably, shoppers are likely to spend more. Since around 2017, contactless transactions have been authorised online. This means that seconds after a card is reported to the bank as being lost or stolen, a transaction attempted with that card will be declined. Therefore, the window of opportunity for a thief is the time between gaining illegal possession of the card and it being reported lost. During that time, up to five contactless transactions can be made toward the cumulative value limit set by the bank. If the contactless transaction limit is raised, so too will the cumulative limit. In turn, the value of the goods that can be fraudulently purchased goes up, which would seem to be even more bad news for the banks. From a cardholder’s standpoint, it’s important to realise that if, say, a debit card is stolen and fraudulent transactions made, they will initially come out of the cardholder’s account. They will be refunded by the bank in due course, but for those who are financially vulnerable, it could cause utility direct debits or rent payments to fail, bringing immense hardship. If the limit was raised to £100, a cardholder would suffer twice the size of short-term loss if their card was stolen, and the impact on the lives of those already struggling to make ends meet could be catastrophic. Since the introduction of Chip and PIN, card- present fraud has fallen as everyone expected, and EMV Chip and PIN is regarded worldwide UNATTENDED KIOSKS Recent surveys found more than half of UK businesses would remove the option of cash payments in stores and even more are urging for the contactless payment cap to be increased still further. Likewise, kiosk operators must be prepared to support unattended contactless payments, as consumer sentiment shifts towards these being a need rather than just a want. PETER ALCOCK HEAD OF PRODUCT MARKETING NMI 24KIOSK AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE MAGAZINE CONTACTLESS PAYMENTS IN UNATTENDED KIOSKSUNATTENDED KIOSKS 25 KIOSK AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE MAGAZINEas the gold standard in terms of payment security. It’s true two-factor authentication is all but uncrackable. Chip and PIN is the proper system for high-value card payments. To raise the contactless limit is taking a system designed for fast, low-value payments and trying to use it for something it was never intended for. The impact of SCA on kiosks accepting payments If you accept contactless card payments on your kiosks, you’ll doubtless be aware of the latest change to hit the industry - Strong Customer Authentication, or SCA. This means when a customer buys something from one of your machines and pays with a contactless card, they may be prompted to insert their card and enter a PIN. This is fine if your payment device has a card slot and a PIN pad, but a problem if it doesn’t. Potentially a lost sale and/or an unhappy customer. To see why this isn’t a new or significant problem, it’s useful to understand how contactless transactions work. Around five years ago, card issuers had 70 million contactless cards in issue in the UK and the card schemes made a real push to get retailers to upgrade their card terminals and to encourage cardholders to use them for UNATTENDED KIOSKS 26KIOSK AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE MAGAZINE low-value payments. The self-service industries such as vending, parking, tolls and kiosks could take card payments with just a tap, with no need to verify the transaction with a PIN. The only proviso was that the transaction had to be under the contactless limit – at the time around £30 – and that there was a limited number of sequential contactless transactions or cumulative value that could be made before re-validating your card through a Chip and PIN transaction. So all was well, and low-cost card payment for vending was realised. Separately to all this, the EU Payments Services Directive (PSD2) brought in new laws in January 2018 to improve consumer rights and reduce many kinds of payment fraud. An important element of PSD2 is SCA, commonly known as two-factor authentication. For certain contactless transactions made using a card or smartphone, the cardholder will need to provide additional identification. This could be in the form of a PIN, a biometric or a one-time passcode sent to a phone. Now all this is fine and understandable for general retail or eCommerce, but why should it have to apply to kiosks? Let’s examine the risks associated with credit card payment: • The majority of kiosk transactions are at a low average transaction value. • The services provided are not normally able to be resold for cash. PSD2 provides a number of exemptions to SCA to minimise friction in customer payment journeys and one of these is the Merchant Category Code (MCC) exemption. Unattended transactions from Parking, Road and Bridge Tolls and Transportation Ticketing are exempt from SCA. In the UK, contactless charity donations from charities are also exempt. The other relevant provision is the low-value exemption. Card transactions below €50 are considered low value and are generally exempt from SCA. However, if the customer initiates more than five consecutive low-value payments or if the value of the total payments exceeds €100, SCA will be required. UNATTENDED KIOSKS Raising the contactless limit is taking a system designed for fast, low-value payments and trying to use it for something it was never intended for 27 KIOSK AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE MAGAZINE So is the kiosk and vending industry being singled out? The important thing here is that for the low-value transactions we typically see in kiosks and vending, SCA is no different to the limits which are already in force for normal contactless transactions. The majority of vending customers will simply try another card if their first is declined, and remember, a Google Pay or Apple Pay transaction always authenticates the user, so will not decline. Why phone-based contactless payments are different Mobile wallet schemes such as Google Pay and Apple Pay work by tokenising a user’s card details during the one-time registration process and securely storing these within the smartphone or tablet. The difference between a contactless card transaction and a mobile wallet transaction is that in order to invoke payment on a phone, some sort of authentication of the user has to take place, usually biometric or a passcode. This counts as a second factor in securing a contactless transaction, making it as good in banking terms as Chip and PIN. For this reason, the contactless limit doesn’t apply. So how do I add contactless payment to my kiosk? There are two elements to integrating a card payment device with a kiosk; physical – how the reader is going to be mounted, and electrical – how the reader will connect to your kiosk’s computer and the software required to drive it. The first thing is to decide on a payment device based on the acceptance method you wish to offer (contactless, chip, magstripe) and whether payment values above the contactless limit will need to be accepted. For example, an airline ticketing kiosk may need to process transactions over £100, so a Chip and PIN device would be essential. Most readers intended for use in unattended indoor environments such as those from Payter, Crane, Ingenico and OTI have an option to surface mount the reader or recess it into the kiosk itself, the latter being the neatest option. Connecting the payment device to the kiosk’s controller computer is usually as simple as plugging in a USB. Processing transactions requires contracting with a payment gateway that acts as a link between your kiosk and the bank with which you have your merchant account. Check with the payment gateway that they have a certification of the payment device you want to use with your bank. Next, either the gateway or the device manufacturer will provide you with an API (programming interface) or SDK (software development kit) to allow your kiosk software to send payment requests to the payment device. Once your developers have completed the integration and sent test transactions, you’re ready to deploy.VIRTUAL LEARNING 28KIOSK AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE MAGAZINET here are various touchless solutions for interactive kiosks and displays and many provide benefits beyond any immediate safety concerns. These can offset the costs of upgrading existing kiosks or building new lines. Touchless technologies for kiosks Touchless technology for kiosks can include using feet or hand gestures to make choices, converting mid-air hand gestures into an on- screen cursor, or using the feet to manoeuvre a pedal to allow for contactless navigation of a kiosk or interactive screen. QR or bar codes are also touchless solutions that industries can customise for specific uses. A user can scan a code to enable their smartphone to use as a remote control to interact with a kiosk. Airlines have implemented code scanning to allow travellers to check-in, print boarding passes and check-in bags, providing a complete contactless solution. Travellers can also self-scan their tickets in order to board a plane. Voice user interface design that combines speech recognition, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is another touchless technology that makes interacting with kiosks simple and seamless. In this case, consumers need only to issue a voice command to achieve desired results such as ordering via a drive-through restaurant order screen. Using AI, machine learning and natural language processing make the experience easy, fast, and safe. The benefits of contactless kiosks Besides health safety benefits, contactless or touchless technologies also provide other advantages for the industries that utilise kiosks: • Improved hygiene and safety for customers and employees alike Touchless technology can make consumers feel safe, whether they’re ordering food at a drive-through restaurant or getting information from a kiosk to navigate a busy airport. The fact that a person need not touch a screen that hundreds of people may have touched before is a positive factor of touchless technology. The health benefits of providing a touch-free experience with kiosks go beyond protecting consumers, it also increases the health and safety of employees by reducing or eliminating contact with screens. VIRTUAL LEARNING HOW TOUCHLESS TECHNOLOGY FOR KIOSKS IMPROVES CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT As people throughout the world resume activities that have been on hold for the past year, such as dining out, travelling, shopping and engaging with the world around them, doing so safely remains a concern. The kiosk industry can help provide safe, interactive solutions for many facets of this new contactless world, by integrating touchless technology. LAURA TATE DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL MARKETING KARDOME 29 KIOSK AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE MAGAZINENext >