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Revolut has launched the UK's first facial recognition checkout, Revolut Pay with Smile, letting customers pay without a card or phone after opting in via the Revolut app. The system compares a customer's face with the selfie ID check they uploaded at sign-up, and Revolut says it is UK GDPR compliant with data encrypted end-to-end and never stored by participating merchants. For vendors selling POS and payments into hospitality, this is a new integration target with a built-in merchant incentive: purchases made with Pay with Smile carry no processing fees for merchants, per Retail Systems.
The checkout runs through Revolut Register, Revolut's new POS system. It is a two-screen register powered by an internal eSIM, with a detachable front touch screen that staff can take to customers where they are seated. Revolut told Retail Systems that the system could be used standalone in future. Kiss the Hippo, a 12-café London chain, has exclusive access during the initial rollout across its Bloomsbury, Chelsea and Soho stores, with merchants able to sign up now and a wider rollout targeted later this year.
Why Revolut is pushing into hospitality
Revolut commissioned Censuswide research covering 2,000 UK consumers and 1,000 UK independent hospitality business owners. It found payment terminal outages cost businesses an average of £2,495 in direct lost revenue each year. Independent businesses spend an average of £875 on payments processing and hardware, with pubs and bars paying £950. Alex Codina, general manager of merchant payments at Revolut, said there is "still an underlying concern in the merchant space, particularly in small and medium-sized businesses, with reliability of payment infrastructure", adding that this and processing costs are "unacceptable". He added: "Now we are seeing the hospitality vertical as the next one to really double down on."
Each Pay with Smile payment earns customers triple RevPoints, Revolut's internal reward points exchangeable for discounts, air miles or hotel stays. Payments over £200 prompt a second authentication step, such as an in-app push notification or Revolut Pay passcode.
The launch lands alongside a second Revolut data breach in a matter of days. Finextra reports that some Revolut customers were impacted by a security incident at US broker DriveWealth, which handles US share trading for Revolut customers. DriveWealth confirmed unauthorised access to its network over a two-day period in September, with hackers taking historic personal data including names, email and postal addresses, phone numbers and employment information. Revolut said no passwords or financial payment information were involved. The breach follows one less than two weeks earlier, when Revolut disclosed sensitive customer information including passports after receiving fraudulent requests sent from a legitimate government agency email domain.
McDonald's puts $8.5bn behind restaurant modernisation
McDonald's is committing $8.5 billion in franchisee support through 2036, with approximately $5 billion provided by the end of 2030, per Restaurant Technology News. The US-focused programme, Restaurant > NEXT, is expected to produce about 250 basis points of gross restaurant-level efficiency, translating into roughly $100,000 in additional annual cash flow for the average US restaurant. McDonald's projects franchisees will recover their portion of the investment in approximately four years.
The operational tools are specific. Its drive-thru assistant, Archy, takes orders in English and Spanish with accuracy above 90%, and McDonald's estimates it could free at least 50 employee hours per restaurant each week as it scales. Bluetooth Low Energy tags track inventory in real time, potentially saving five labour hours per week and reducing food waste by 15%. Order-checking scales catch and correct about 10% of the orders they inspect, with more than 10,000 restaurants already using them and that number expected to double by 2028. ArchIQ and other tools deploy in sequenced bundles beginning in 2027, with all new restaurants incorporating the Restaurant > NEXT design standard from the first quarter of 2028.
For UK vendors, the direct pipeline is limited: the rollout is US-first, with the US edge rollout completing in 2027 and the programme drawing lessons from more than 8,000 restaurants in China. But the specification signals where McDonald's franchisees will spend next, and UK franchisees of global chains tend to follow the parent company's technology roadmap. A vendor selling inventory tracking, drive-thru automation or kitchen display systems into UK hospitality should read this as the direction of travel for the largest QSR estate in the market.
Local planning still gates UK openings
The same week, Stoke-on-Trent City Council refused McDonald's application to open its High Street, Sandyford drive-thru 24 hours a day. The restaurant currently operates 7am to 2am following a 2024 appeal. Planning officers refused the extension due to potential noise impact on nearby residents in the early hours, arguing that the applicant's noise impact assessment relied on a "single weekday overnight survey" and forecast customer numbers supplied by the applicant. The report concluded: "It has not been satisfactorily demonstrated that the proposed operation of the drive through facility and home delivery service between 2am and 7am would avoid additional noise and disturbance to the detriment of the living conditions of neighbouring residential occupiers."
For vendors, this is a reminder that UK site expansion runs through local planning, not just corporate capex. A new site or extended hours means a tech buying window, but the timing is set by committee decisions, not franchisee intent.
A note on Peach Data
Peach Data provides verified, TPS-screened contact data across thousands of UK hospitality venues, so vendors can reach the right decision-makers when buying windows like these open. peachdata.co.uk