Revolut pilots facial recognition checkout in London with 0% fees as it moves further into merchant payments

Revolut has started a three-day pilot of "Pay with Smile", which it describes as the UK's first in-store facial recognition checkout, at three London cafés, with merchants charged 0% processing fees. It is also launching a new point-of-sale terminal, Revolut Register, at a 50% discount of £349.50 plus VAT.

Revolut has spent the past decade building a consumer app and has since moved into business accounts and card acceptance. It secured approval to operate as a UK bank earlier this year. The pilot takes it into the hardware and checkout layer used by high-street merchants, which has mostly been held by incumbent acquirers and terminal providers.

What launched

The trial runs from 24 to 26 September at the Bloomsbury, Chelsea and Soho branches of Kiss the Hippo Coffee. Customers opt in through the Revolut app. At the till, the system matches their face against the selfie identity check they completed when they opened their account, then authenticates and completes the payment without a phone or card.

Pay with Smile runs on Revolut Register, a new two-screen, modular till for hospitality businesses. It combines payments, banking and floor operations, and has a built-in eSIM backup to keep terminals online if a venue's broadband fails. Revolut says transactions are protected with end-to-end encryption managed inside its app, and that merchants never store personal data.

The commercial terms

• Processing fees: 0% on Pay with Smile transactions during the pilot
• Hardware: Revolut Register at £349.50 plus VAT, half the £699 recommended retail price, for merchants taking their first terminal before 31 December 2026
• Consumer incentives: triple RevPoints on every transaction and £1 speciality coffees on a dedicated menu

Revolut's own research, published with the launch, puts the average spend of independent venues on payment processing and infrastructure at £875 a month, and above £950 for pubs and bars. It estimates that terminal outages cost venues £2,495 a year in lost revenue. It also says more than half of UK adults have experienced delays or failed payments when a merchant lost its internet connection.

The company has not said when, or whether, Pay with Smile will be extended beyond the three cafés. It has also not said what fees will apply after the pilot.

Why it matters

The pilot turns merchant acquiring into a second revenue line for Revolut, alongside the subscription and interchange income from its consumer base. Offering zero processing fees and discounted hardware is a way to win merchants from established acquirers on price.

Biometric checkout also brings regulatory exposure. The Information Commissioner's Office has published guidance on biometric recognition under UK data protection law. The launch came on the same day as reports of a fresh security incident affecting Revolut customers, so the company's handling of customer data is likely to be closely scrutinised as it asks users to register their faces for payments.

Original source: Business Matters — https://bmmagazine.co.uk/in-business/revolut-facial-recognition-payments-pilot/