An internal memo sent to McDonald’s franchises this week indicates that the fast food chain is preparing to roll out a mobile payment platform on September 15th. According to the notice, employees are required to be trained on the systems by Monday the 15th and the hardware, which has already started arriving at some locations, must be installed and tested before that date.
It doesn’t seem likely that this is Apple’s upcoming iPhone-exclusive payment system, which the the Cupertino tech firm is already partnering with retailers to roll out, but will instead be a cross-platform NFC option using standard VeriFone hardware that already exists in many locations. That’s not to say the iPhone 6 won’t be able to take advantage of this, as the unannounced device is said to support NFC using chips made by XNP.
Earlier this year, Business Insider reported that McDonald’s was testing an upcoming mobile application that would allow customers to place orders from anywhere, then drop in at the restaurant to pick up the food, likely with a component that would allow them to pay using their phone. It’s likely that this rollout indicates this program will be launching nationally soon.
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I work at one of the biggest McDonald’s franchise around Austin, Texas, this is just one of the updates on how to handled payments trough smartphones, it used to be a big Verisign box out of the Drive Thru Window but it failed so bad so now is just a pedestal attached to the cashless device. But Verisign is the one who know something from Cupertino is coming.
NFC Payments is nothing new for McDonalds (http://www.rfid-blog.com/?p=828, article dated 2012) so how can one draw a conclusion that this is related to reports of the iPhone 6 having NFC? Or is it possible that McDonalds has finally decided to replace its dysfunctional equipment (http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/17/nfcs-ongoing-user-interface-problem-some-readers-dont-work/, article dated 2012). Maybe the hardware upgrade is related to the reports of the new iPhone gaining NFC capabilities but NFC certainly isn’t anything new for McDonalds.
Uhhhh…McDonald’s has had NFC payments, I’ve paid at multiple locations using Google Wallet. The pay pass reader is NFC, nobody knows that because pay pass cards never caught on. It’s sad that it takes Apple putting NFC in one of their phones (finally) for NFC to even break out to people other than Android enthusiasts. I’ve already had 3 separate phones with NFC capabilities, so where has Apple been all this time? Falling behind every year…
So this is US only again? Damn, nobody will support NFC in Germany…
McDonald restaurants in the UK have had contactless payment via RFID cards for years. The addition of NFC won’t be that big a deal.