The following content originally appeared in issue 62 of Cooler Plus, which you can subscribe to here.
Nayax is a leader in cashless, telemetry, management and monitoring for the vending industry. Cooler Plus asked Julie Ach about the company’s work in providing cashless solutions for the ‘unattended’ industry.
When did Nayax’s cashless payments journey begin and what were the biggest challenges at the start?
Nayax was established in 2005 with the idea to offer vending operators a way to grow their sales and reduce their operational costs. We saw that there was a gap in the technology in the market.
We needed to gain the respect and understanding of the vending market and cashless payments market. We focused on transaction security, hardware and processing fee costs while working on all the needed certifications and guidelines in the cashless payment industry. Nayax needed to get to know the players in the banking system, as well as the leading card scheme players. There was still no knowledge and understanding of the unique market of the vending industry and micro-payments.
While cashless payments clearly do away with the need to carry cash, what is the full range of payment options that your technologies enable?
Nayax’s technology enables operators to offer practically every type of cashless payment at all types of unattended, automated machines. This ranges from credit or debit cards to pre-paid cards used in closed environments like work places, hospitals, or universities; mobile payments, via mobile wallet apps including Nayax’s own Monyx Wallet app; and even payments via SMS. Additionally Nayax can connect to coin dispensers and bill acceptors, so machines can accept cash and cashless payments, seamlessly. Our telemetry system and vending software can ensure cash accountability – no more skimming off the top and lost revenue.
How do you keep up with the rapid changes in the payments industry?
Nayax is constantly developing more payment options and more ways to manage machines.
We closely watch the trends in the payments industry to make sure we stay a step ahead of what consumers are demanding, globally. Since we work worldwide, in over 40 countries and 26 currencies, our solutions are flexible as we provide each market with the relevant options. For example, we offer consumers to pay with ApplePay and Google Wallet in the UK, US and Canada, AliPay and wechat in China, interact in Canada, and SMS payments in the Nordic countries.
What are the benefits of cashless payments for vending operators?
For operators, we see that their businesses run more smoothly when they have a way to track all of their machines from one system, even on-the-go with our mobile application. There is no need for them to visit machines that have full inventory of popular products and are running as they should. Their time should only be spent visiting machines that need maintenance or refilling. Our operators don’t miss sales by using our smart alert system, which are customisable and are sent via email and/or SMS.
Operators also have the ability to market their brand, offer discounts and see every transaction in real time – providing a better customer experience by using our smart instant refund system. Multivend also increases unplanned sales, and consumer convenience.
How can your technologies improve security and reduce fraud?
Our cashless payment solutions comply with the most up-to-date industry standards for security. For example, our system is PCI-DSS compliant, meaning that the payment card industry data security standards council certifies our payments solution. Additionally, our payment solutions are EMV certified, levels 1 and 2. Our devices can read EMV chip cards, as well as EMV NFC contactless cards, and securely transfer the data to the financial institutions. This method is much more secure than previous MSR or magnetic stripe reader devices. However, our devices read magnetic stripes as well for cards that haven’t yet been updated with the latest technology – something we see more so in the US.
We have seen significant reduction in stolen card transactions, from 1.5% worldwide (5% in France) to less than 0.1% with these EMV transactions. We also see a reduction of skimming, or copying card data while used in a machine. All of this is to say that our consumers are better protected when they use EMV enabled cards at our EMV enabled card readers.
Another security we feature originates from our backend monitoring and management suite, or vending software. We can set thresholds for the number of times a card can be used a day, or a maximum transaction limit.
Will your technologies fit any vending machine?
Yes. The Nayax solution is compatible with almost any unattended automated machine, in any industry – it’s actually pretty exciting to see the range of applications that are already live, and really the possibilities are endless. As a global solution, we work with machines from around the world, so the origin of an operator’s machine is not relevant. Some examples of the industries we work in include traditional vending such as snack and drinks; pulse machines, such as kiddy / amusement rides, massage chairs, laundromats, car wash, prize machines, and even entrances to public pay-to-use restrooms; coffee machines; transportation tickets; electrical vehicle charging stations; reverse vending or recycling machines; and donation points, for example at free museums where people can choose to make a donation to contribute their support. We also work with PC based machines and are constantly working with machine manufacturers to make sure we fit all their needs.
In terms of technology, how do you ensure that your customer’s machines are always up to date?
We offer remote software updates that do not interfere with the machine’s availability. Also, we are in touch with many machine manufacturers and are members of all global vending associations, so we know about upcoming changes well before they are implemented. This helps guide our in-house development team.
Additionally, we are aware of and work with all vending protocols. In terms of supporting our operators, we have offices and distributors worldwide, so we can offer local support in the local language. Nayax uses global wireless network solution provider when possible to make sure we offer our global customers to best communication and network availability. We work closely with our partners to make sure our new features and theirs are a perfect match and up to date with market trends.
As well as doing away with the need to carry cash, the same systems can be used for pre-payment systems. How popular is this as an option and where do you see most pre-payment systems being used?
In general when we talk about pre-paid cards and closed environment solutions, we are referring to universities, work places and other institutions like hospitals, factories and large corporates. Nayax offers many features such as sales by type of cards, time of day and more. The Nayax solution is installed in many airports for the use of their employees in Europe, universities in France, purchase PPE in Spain and more.
What’s next for cashless vending and for Nayax?
We see that the entire vending industry is adopting mobile payments into its hardware systems. Consumers reach for their mobile phones now for everything: internet, phone calls, messaging friends, and now to make payments. Mobile phones are the new all-in-one device, and at Nayax we see this as our challenge to make our cashless payment solutions fully compatible and easy to use with the mobile device that never leaves our hand or pocket.
Our main goal is to bring the unattended industry full consumer engagement. Like we say in our slogan, we want to help operators attend to their otherwise unattended consumer. Nayax helps operators bridge the communication gap with their consumers, bring more sales, increase the number of returning customers, and connect with consumers in new ways such as machine marketing and product advertising, social media and introducing the operator’s own brand to the consumer via smartphone apps.
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