Revolut lets shoppers pay by face in UK cafes. Merchants pay no fee on those tills

Revolut opened a face payment service in the United Kingdom on 24 September. It is called Pay with Smile and runs on a new till the bank sells to cafes, restaurants and hotels. Shops pay no processing fee on those transactions.

Kiss the Hippo starts with three sites and may add nine more

The first customer is Kiss the Hippo, a London coffee chain. Three of its shops have the system now. The company will decide later in 2026 whether the other nine get it. Alex Damgaci, its managing director, said the point is to take friction out of paying.

A shopper turns the feature on inside the Revolut app. At the counter they look at the terminal. The camera compares that face with the Selfie ID photo taken when the account was opened. Fourthline and Onfido, now part of Entrust, sit behind the identity checks. Revolut says the shop never keeps the image.

Revolut Register carries two screens and a spare eSIM

The hardware is called Revolut Register. It has a screen for the staff and one for the customer. A second eSIM inside keeps the till online when the main network drops. Revolut says payments run with end-to-end encryption.

Revolut counts 875 pounds a month as the current merchant bill

Revolut says a British merchant pays about 875 pounds a month for card processing and the kit around it, and that hospitality pays more. Against that it offers zero commission on Pay with Smile. The number comes from Revolut and is the case it is making for its own till.

There is a reward attached as well. UK customers collect triple RevPoints on every face payment. That is a familiar move in a market where shoppers already carry 12 loyalty schemes, and where the fight is over which card gets picked at the counter.

Alex Codina says the till replaces fragmented checkouts

Alex Codina, general manager of merchant payments at Revolut Business, said the company wants to “replace outdated, fragmented tills”. Banks and platforms are both pushing into the checkout this month. Shopify moved Shop Pay into Meta Muse a few days earlier.

Kiss the Hippo gains a checkout that costs it nothing to run. Card acquirers lose the fee on every face payment taken in those three shops. Revolut collects either way, because the till, the app and the loyalty points all sit inside one account it owns. Shoppers outside the United Kingdom gain nothing yet, since the service runs in that market alone.