12-09-07 Zonal unveils Contactless Payments for the Hospitality sector at the Thames Festival

The UK's leading EPoS supplier brings another first to the hospitality and leisure sectors. Zonal's new Contactless Payments solution speeds up transactions enabling more customers to be served during each trading session. To show you this exciting new technology we would like to invite all hospitality professionals to a demonstration of the first hospitality EPoS system integrated with the new Contactless Payments system.

Contactless Payments is a new scheme being launched in the UK in September 2007 and will be rolled out across the country in the near future. Hospitality and leisure premises stand to gain significant benefits from when the scheme gains popularity. How exactly?

Reduced transaction times – In any service business, the ability to reduce sales transaction time is of utmost importance to the customer. In hospitality however, it is of key importance to the success of the business. Contactless makes it possible to serve people much quicker, therefore more people can be served in a busy period and queues are reduced.
How? A Chip & PIN transaction takes on average 6 seconds (a long time if “last orders” is about to ring). Contactless transactions happen in only 0.6 of a second.

Increased frequency of purchases – Contactless payments are quicker and this reduction in hassle tempts people to visit the bar or sales counter more often. This has been shown to be between 20-30% in early trials.

Reduced cash handling costs – Handling large amounts of money on-site is always a challenge for the hospitality venue. Contactless waves goodbye to cash, substantially reducing your banking fees into the bargain

Increased security for customers – Previous cashless systems relied on a signature (mag stripe) or the entry of a 4 digit code (Chip & PIN). Both these systems have been shown to be vulnerable to fraud. Contactless only needs the owner of the card to pass the card in front of the reader. Simple, safe and very fast.

Being at the forefront of style and technology – If you run a premium service outlet, your clientele will be made up of many `early adopters’. Not only will they expect to be able to use their new Contactless cards as soon as possible, they will expect the higher quality of service on offer, one of the main benefits of the Contactless payments system.

We are launching our new Contactless Payments solution at the Thames Festival on the 15th and 16th September. The Thames Festival is a fun annual free event with food, drink, music, arts, crafts and activities for chidren, so bring the whole family and pop along to the Barclaycard Stratosphere in Jubilee Gardens to find out how to take advantage of this new technology and gain an early competitive edge.

Come along at anytime and make contact!