Brillian Technologies

We’ve seen a number of blog posts recently in response to various articles claiming the payment systems and services we have in the USA are inferior to our overseas colleagues. In a recent article in the NY Post , the author asks “Why can’t we bring bill-paying into the modern age” in the USA and then goes on to describe the secure, fast and convenient pay-at-the-table service offered in restaurants throughout Europe. It begs the question – why have European restaurants completely adopted this service while it remains little known in the USA?

Here are a few reasons why:

1. The EMV standard was adopted by credit card issuing banks in Europe to reduce fraud. Cards with magnetic swipes where replaced with “smart cards” – cards containing a computer chip that require the input of a PIN to complete a transaction. The campaign to use these smart cards (called “Chip and PIN” in the UK and Ireland) was successful in reducing fraud in England and spread across Europe. In the US, Walmart is the largest retail voice singing the praises of EMV including fraud reduction and lower rates it would pay to processors – they’d like the rest of the retailers to join them in promoting its use.

2. Laws and regulations were passed that essentially shifted the risk of credit card fraud from the banks to the retailers and consumers. Retailers had a major incentive to upgrade their hardware and systems to meet EMV payment standards. They purchased new payment processing equipment to reduce their liability.

3. Tips are set at a certain percentage or are not expected in many European restaurants. This eliminates a behavioral change now necessary for pay-at-the-table to  flourish in the USA. Servers need to learn how to prompt customers to enter a tip before closing out the transaction. Although simple training can offset this change, it’s amazing how reluctant some servers are.