The following content originally appeared in issue 62 of Cooler Plus, which you can subscribe to here.
Interested to discover more about the history of cashless vending technologies, Cooler Plus talked to VMC’s Kim Pennington.
VMC has been providing cashless payment solutions for the vending industry for over 20 years. How did VMC get into this industry and what were the biggest challenges at the start?
We entered the market place back 25 years ago – in 1991 – involved in removing cash from vending machines because of the problems associated with managing coins. It’s grown from there. In 2004 we launched our own fully integrated EpoS solution so clients could have freedom of choice on vending and a full cashless payment system in all areas on-site.
What is the full range of payment options that your technologies enable?
Our core business is ensuring the points of sale are 100% cashless. There are a variety of options for adding value to a cashless account/card which include cash, credit/debit card and payroll deduction. Loading methods can be physical or mobile/on-line. Most of our customers prefer to use their own smart device to add value to their cashless account.
Almost everyone has a smart phone these days. Has this made the advance of cashless easier, or has it forced you to rethink technologies?
The reality today is that the speed of adoption of new technologies is accelerating faster than we have seen in the past 20 years. The open payments and banking industries have been promoting new technologies but have had very little success in achieving critical mass adoption. Systems like Mondex launched back in 1990 had massive investment and bank backing but never achieved mass adoption.
Contactless payment cards were rolled out back in 1997 and have taken almost 20 years to achieve public acceptance. Mobile payments have a similar history of hype, bang and bust. Applepay had what no other player has had before ‘critical mass’ as the point they launched ApplePay in 2014; over 1 million cards were registered in the first three days and 220,000 vendors accepting ApplePay on day One. At the end of the day, ApplePay is, however exciting, just a technology or a conduit which enables users to link a mobile handset to a traditional banking infrastructure.
While the focus on cashless payments can be on the consumer experience, what are the back-office benefits?
Most operators need to have good quality data on their customer transactions, this enables them to make decisions and react quickly to changes in their market place.
Can your technologies be fitted to any vending machine?
Virtually. As members of both the EVA and AVA we have an excellent working relationship with most vending manufacturers. Our engineering director is part of the technical support group on cashless payments on vending machines.
All technologies update frequently these days and you have to work with many third parties. How do you support your customers and ensure that their machines are always up to date?
By working closely with vending manufacturers and operators, we know the machines they put forward for client selection are always VMC cashless compatible. We have undertaken specific projects to ensure our cashless payment works on a large range of machines, so our client have the maximum choice.
What are the biggest challenges and opportunities ahead for cashless payments and for VMC?
There is a real danger that technology hype overtakes the real world requirement to deliver the core payment system requirements. VMC have always had a strong focus on understanding the needs of clients along with our ability to deliver reliable, trusted payment solutions. The speed of change facing the payments industry, especially the banking establishment, provides a huge opportunity for agile companies like VMC to develop “real world” solutions on the leading edge of payment technology. Our client relationships with global companies that go back nearly 20 years are a testament to this.
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