4 Restaurant Payment Processing Trends

Over the past two years, restaurants have seen significant changes in how customers pay, shifting away from legacy processes to online and touchless payments. While a few years ago, customers were content to pay with cash or credit cards, customers have now grown to expect more payment options.

Changing customer preferences mixed with a rapid digital transformation have made it difficult to imagine a restaurant operating successfully without updated technology. Consider these four trends and the technology that restaurants need to provide the payment experiences customers want.

Mobile Wallet App Adoption Grows

Cash is no longer king. Instead, digital payments, including mobile payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay have grown in popularity over the past few years. People may forget their wallets, but they rarely forget their phones, so mobile wallets are always an available option for payment. More than 98 million Americans say they use digital wallets because they’re more convenient than carrying around dollar bills and credit cards. As more people grow comfortable using mobile wallets, the use of this payment option will only continue to increase.

Additionally, because customers only need to tap or wave their smartphones near the card reader, they eliminate the risk of coming in contact with harmful pathogens. This feature of mobile wallet payments has led to increased adoption during the pandemic.

QR Code Payments Become More Common

Another option that is becoming more widely adopted is QR code payment. The use of convenient and touch-free QR codes has increased 150 percent in the U.S. since March 2019. To use QR Code Payments:

Restaurants generate a QR code and print it on a receipt.
Customers scan the QR code with their device and then view, pay, and add a tip to their bill with a credit card, debit card, or mobile wallet.

QR code payments are an easy way for businesses to create touchless pay experiences because merchants don’t need to invest in payment devices to accept them. In addition, they offer increased flexibility enabling restaurants to accept payments anytime, anywhere, whether customers are dining in-house, picking up curbside, or paying for a delivery order at the front door.

Contactless Pay-at-the-Table Adoption Increases

Contactless pay-at-the-table adoption has accelerated in the wake of the pandemic when people shied away from using shared PIN pads. As a result, consumers have grown accustomed to contactless, digital payment technology, with 63% stating they would switch to a business that offered this type of payment.

A leading mobile ordering and payment system gives you all the features such as splitting checks, accepting multiple payments on a single bill, taking mobile wallet payments, securely processing payments, capturing signatures from customers electronically, and emailing receipts.

More Customers Want Self-service and Unattended Payments

Quick service restaurant customers want the option to avoid lines and place orders without interacting with restaurant staff. In fact, 60 percent of quick-service restaurant consumers say they’d visit restaurants more often if they had self-service kiosks. Additionally, tabletop kiosks provide customers seated in the dining room with more flexibility to pay when they want, rather than waiting for a server to print their check, run their card, and return with the receipt.

Kiosks are also helping restaurants overcome labor shortage challenges. Self-service and unattended payments can help keep your restaurant running quickly by automating the ordering and payment process. This frees workers to focus on more essential aspects of a restaurant operation and keeps customers satisfied by offering them a quick payment process.

Restaurants need to consider how changing payment processing trends will impact their businesses. Gone are the days of accepting only cash and card-present payments. Customers have grown to expect more options. To stay competitive, restaurants must implement the technology to provide the payment experiences customers want.