Revolut pilots facial recognition checkout at London coffee chain Kiss the Hippo

Revolut has unveiled an in-store facial recognition checkout that lets customers pay for everyday purchases with a glance. The feature, called Pay with Smile, runs on the company's Revolut Register point-of-sale terminal and is being tested at Kiss the Hippo coffee shops in London's Bloomsbury, Chelsea and Soho from September 24 to 26.

At the counter, a customer taps Pay with Smile on the Register screen and completes a face identity check, similar to unlocking a smartphone or accessing a banking app. The system verifies the person's identity against the checks they completed when signing up to Revolut; if the facial match succeeds, an account-to-account payment is authorised automatically.

Opt-in and data protection

Customers are not enrolled by default: they must actively enable Revolut Pay with Smile in their app settings, and consent can be revoked at any time. Revolut says facial recognition data is encrypted end-to-end and that merchants do not store personal data. The company describes the pilot as the UK's first in-store facial recognition checkout.

Payments run on the Revolut Register, a modular two-screen register that combines payments with floor operations. It includes a built-in eSIM backup meant to keep terminals online if a venue loses its internet connection during peak hours.

Fees, perks and rollout

During the pilot Revolut is charging 0% processing fees on Pay with Smile transactions, which it says will ease the burden on independent venues. Guests paying with a smile can order from a special menu with speciality coffees priced at £1 and earn triple RevPoints, the company's loyalty points, on every transaction.

According to Revolut research published alongside the launch, independent venues spend an average of £875 a month on payment processing and infrastructure, while terminal outages cost them £2,495 a year in lost revenue.

Alex Codina, general manager of merchant payments at Revolut Business, said the company is replacing “outdated, fragmented tills” with a hyper-efficient checkout experience designed to solve consumer and merchant pain points. Alex Damgaci, managing director of Kiss the Hippo Coffee, said the feature will be rolled out across all 12 of the chain's cafés later this year.