Revolut pilots facial-recognition checkout in London coffee shops ahead of wider rollout

# What happened Revolut is testing a point-of-sale system that lets customers pay in person using facial recognition. Bloomberg's Charlie Wells reported the pilot at the UK coffee chain Kiss the Hippo. Revolut says it plans a full launch later this year.

# How the pilot is described

• Several outlets identify the pilot as running on Revolut's Register checkout platform. PaymentsJournal and Fintechnews refer to the initiative as "Pay with Smile." Finextra reports the trial is live at three Kiss the Hippo cafés in London.
• Reports say merchants participating in the trial are not charged additional processing fees for face-pay transactions. That suggests Revolut is subsidising merchant costs during the pilot.

# What users will experience Early coverage indicates customers can complete in-store payments by looking into a camera connected to the checkout terminal. The flow is presented as similar to unlocking a phone with facial recognition: a customer consents and then pays by matching their face to a stored biometric on file.

# Pilot scope and timing Fintechnews and other outlets report the trial ran at three Kiss the Hippo locations (Bloomsbury, Chelsea, Soho) over a short window in late September. Revolut has framed the pilot as an initial test ahead of a broader launch scheduled for later in the year.

# Practical implications for merchants and customers

• For merchants: the pilot removes processing fees for face-pay transactions and integrates with Revolut Register, which may reduce friction for merchants already using that POS.
• For customers: facial recognition aims to speed up checkout, especially in busy cafes. The coverage to date does not provide a complete account of enrollment, consent steps, or fallback payment options.

# What's still unclear Reports so far leave several operational and policy details unreported: how customers opt in, how biometric data is stored and secured, whether facial templates are stored locally or in the cloud, how consent is revoked, and what safeguards are in place against spoofing or misuse. Regulatory questions — such as data-protection compliance and age verification — are mentioned implicitly in coverage but not addressed with specifics by Revolut in the pieces cited.

# Why this matters If rolled out widely, face-based checkout could change how quick-service merchants handle high-throughput transactions by reducing card handling and tapping. But adoption will depend on customer willingness to use biometrics, merchant economics, and regulatory scrutiny on biometric data use.

# Immediate takeaways

• Merchants using Revolut Register may see an easy technical path to test face-pay, supported by waived fees during the pilot.
• Customers should look for explicit enrollment and privacy details before opting in.