British fintech company Revolut launched a facial recognition payment trial in London on September 24, 2026, allowing customers to pay for items simply by looking at a checkout terminal without using a phone, wallet, or bank card. The feature, branded as “Pay with Smile,” rolled out across three Kiss the Hippo specialty coffee shops located in Bloomsbury, Chelsea, and Soho.
As teamfrance-export.fr reported, the pilot introduces biometric checkout capabilities integrated directly into Revolut Register, a new modular, dual-screen point-of-sale system built specifically for the hospitality and retail sectors. During the initial trial period running through September 26, 2026, participating customers could purchase coffee for one British pound sterling.
Biometric Verification via Revolut Register
The system operates by matching a customer’s face scanned live at the terminal against biometric reference data collected during the digital identity verification selfie process required when opening a Revolut account. According to details reported by mediaterranee.com, transaction authentication occurs securely via the application using end-to-end encryption. To address privacy concerns surrounding biometric data, Revolut stated that merchants do not store any personal or biometric information locally, and facial scans are deleted immediately after each transaction.
To incentivize adoption among retailers burdened by fragmented checkout equipment and long queues, Revolut waived processing fees entirely, offering 0% transaction costs for businesses switching to Revolut Register and Pay with Smile. Alex Codina, general manager of merchant payments at Revolut Business, stated that the initiative aims to eliminate checkout friction for both consumers and merchants. Additionally, customers using the facial recognition checkout earned triple the usual amount of RevPoints, the company’s loyalty program currency, compared to standard card or mobile payments.
Global Context and Future Rollout Plans
While facial recognition checkout technology has operated in international markets for years—with Alipay deploying similar systems in China starting in 2017, and Mastercard alongside PayEye testing comparable hardware in Poland in 2024—adoption in Western Europe has moved more cautiously, as lefigaro.fr noted. Revolut has not yet announced a timeline or confirmed plans to expand the biometric payment pilot beyond the initial London locations into France or the wider European Union.
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