Canadian vending machines to be fitted with mobile payment technology

The Canadian National Vending Alliance has announced that it will partner with payments technology company PayRange to introduce mobile payment options for Canadian vending machines, a move that is expected to add extra revenue to the industry.

“The CNVA prides itself on addressing the needs of consumers,” said Steve Tremblay, President of the Canadian National Vending Alliance, a group comprised of nine of Canada’s largest vending companies. “And with more people becoming increasingly cashless, we realized we needed a mobile payment solution to bring to all our machines.”

Best known in its Android Pay and Apple Pay versions, mobile payment systems allow users to pay for products and services with their smartphones, enabled in this case by PayRange’s BluKey dongle, a copy protection device which processes cashless payments via smartphone app.

The announcement follows up on PayRange’s recent partnership with US vending machine provider American Food & Vending and represents a continuing expansion of services using mobile wallet payments. Evan Bakker, research analyst for Business Insider, says that even as in-store mobile payment tries to overcome consumer preference for traditional payment methods, the industry will see significant growth over the next four years, with in-store mobile payment volumes in the US expected to hit $503 billion USD by 2020.
“With the PayRange platform, we're able to provide consumers with greater choice not only in how to pay, but also in what they can purchase from the machines as they are no longer constrained by the change in their pockets,” says Tremblay.

Recently, the retail technology company USA Technologies (USAT) reported that the deployment of Apple Pay capabilities in its point-of-sale terminals in the U.S., including vending machines and parking meters, produced a 26 per cent increase in transactions and a 22 per cent increase in revenues.

The shift to mobile payments comes at a time when vending machines, or 24/7 kiosks, are undergoing something of a renaissance here in North America. An already well-developed industry in Asia, Europe and the rest of the world, the vending machine industry in North American is set to catch up, with businesses now finding novel ways to offer their products, ranging well beyond the lowly potato chip. Vending machines are now selling everything from pies, hotdogs and burritos to bicycle parts and Calvin Klein underwear.

Earlier this year PayRange introduced its BluKey Smart technology, fitted to work with amusement machines such as video games, pinball machines, skill cranes and kiddie rides. The device allows for mobile payment, can connect with a range of machine interfaces and gives operators the ability to adjust payment options and offer discounts for multiple plays.

“Amusement operators run a wide variety of equipment,” said PayRange founder and former vending and amusement operator Paresh Patel. “It was important that PayRange design a device that would bring the convenience of mobile payment to these operators in a flexible package so they can self-install on all of their equipment. With BluKey Smart, we now have a robust device covering all of the bases for amusement operators.”