Cashless transactions are becoming increasingly common, with consumers rapidly replacing traditional methods of payment with electronic methods to pay for their purchases.
Processing cashless transactions can be more time consuming for both the merchant and customer than the equivalent transaction using cash. For example, the traditional process for accepting credit card payments involved the merchant making a manual imprint of the credit card and manually completing a credit card slip by hand. In more recent years credit card transactions and debit card transactions have been performed using electronic systems. Notwithstanding this change, these transactions can still be relatively slow as electronic systems typically require authentication of the transaction by the holder of the credit or debit card to complete the transaction. For credit cards authentication typically requires a signature from the card holder, and requires the merchant to compare the received signature to a signature on the card. For debit card transactions authentication typically requires the card user to enter a personal identification number (PIN) into a point of service transaction terminal.
Even though these electronic systems are automated to some extent they can still be time consuming for the merchant and customer. Transaction speed can be particularly problematic in transaction environments that process a large number of relatively low value transactions, such as fast food restaurants or service stations, where convenience to the customer is of key importance, and slow transactions may ultimately lead to reduced sales.
Accordingly, there is a need for an alternative form of cashless transaction that may address one or more of the above mentioned drawbacks of known cashless transaction systems.