Cashless Technology Company Announces Rollout of Isis SmartTap on Vending Machines

Vending technology company USA Technologies plans to integrate the SmartTap mobile-commerce software into all of the company’s nearly 100,000 NFC-enabled terminals on vending machines nationwide.

Does this indicate Isis is laying groundwork for an expansion outside of its pilot cities of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Austin, Texas? Neither Isis not the vendor, would say.

“This will be downloaded to our terminals within the next few months,” said USA Technologies’ vice president of corporate communications and investor relations, Veronica Rosa, told NFC Times.  Along with the rollout of SmartTap, USA Technologies and Isis announced the launch of a “Fifth Vend Free” program, which will allow users to receive a free product on their fifth visit to a vending machine equipped with a USA Technologies terminal.

Rosa declined to comment on any plans by Isis to expand outside of the two cities or why the company is adding SmartTap to all of its terminals in vending machines nationwide. Isis, the joint venture of Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile USA, as is its habit, also declined comment on any expansion plans.

USA Technologies, or USAT, announced its plans to integrate SmartTap into its existing terminals last week at the NAMA OneShow in Las Vegas. USAT, which provides cashless terminals for vending machines, has the largest installed base of cashless vending terminals in the U.S. market, including a large base of Coke independent bottlers and operators, Rosa told NFC Times, and SmartTap technology “would be in every major city.”

Integration of SmartTap into these machines means that Isis Mobile Wallet users could participate in loyalty programs by using those machines. Isis’ SmartTap is an optional Isis-developed protocol, running at the same time as payment when the terminal is tapped. The reader retrieves loyalty information from the wallet when an Isis phone taps the terminal; it works only with the Isis Mobile Wallet. At points of sale equipped with SmartTap, Isis Mobile Wallet users can pay and earn rewards points with one tap.

Of course, Isis-enabled SIM cards are only available from phone shops in Salt Lake City and Austin, where USAT has 1,500 terminals in vending machines. They’ve been able to accept payment from the Isis Mobile wallet in the past but these terminals, as well as the company’s others, will now be moving to support loyalty, as well.

Rosa said that Isis might see vending machines as an efficient way to build consumers’ level of comfort with NFC technology.

“Vending machines are everywhere, and people tend to go back to them time and time again, unlike a retailer, where you might frequent once a quarter,” she said, adding that consumers might visit a vending machine several times a day.

And for vending machine companies, offering loyalty programs gives them a new way to market to consumers. “It’s essentially a new ballgame for what has traditionally been a market that never had a connection to its consumer before cashless,” she said.

As far as USAT's Isis project, she said she thinks the venture is “interested in building scale for their mobile wallet.”

USAT also has worked with Google Wallet in the past.

This USAT deployment of Isis SmartTap on its terminals is separate from a trial of payment and loyalty features on 200 vending machines deployed in Austin, which Isis and Coca-Cola announced in March 2013. Those 200 machines were managed by Coca-Cola’s corporate operation and are equipped for NFC payment along with the beverage company’s My Coke Rewards program. Isis users store their My Coke Rewards loyalty card in the Isis wallet, and new program members can register through Isis.

“USAT participated in that pilot, as well–and to a greater scale–but only on the payments piece,” Rosa said. “We are now rolling out the loyalty piece.”

Rick Kanemasu, head of vending technology strategy for Coca-Cola, announced the trial at a March 20 Webinar along with Jim Stapleton, chief sales officer for Isis; neither released figures on actual use of the Isis Mobile Wallet at vending machines, but 34% of the Isis users in Austin added the My Coke Rewards loyalty card to their Isis wallets, and “most of those people are new My Coke Rewards members,” said Kanemasu.

“Their endorsement of cashless and loyalty validates what USAT has been promoting for years–that cashless is good for the industry,” said Rosa.

Kanemasu predicted that mobile payment at vending machines “will grow slowly over time,” accounting for 5% to 10% of transactions at the company’s U.S. vending machines by 2017 and increasing to 10% to 20% by 2020.