fastPay and Blesh’s partnership on “Hands-free Payment” has recently been selected as a finalist in the Product and Service Innovation category at 2014 BAI – Finacle Global Banking Innovation Awards! The awards are granted by the Bank Administration Institute (BAI), the U.S. based prestigious institution of financial services sector and consultancy and technology solution partner of the American Bankers Association (ABA).
Below is the case description of the project, published on the official BAI site. You can watch the showcase video here.
fastPay by DenizBank is a hands-free payment system consisting of a hybrid technology blending Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and the Internet. The system is available at any contracted merchant store that has a web platform account plugged into DenizBank’s system as well as a Bluetooth Low Energy Smart Hub, a mobile micro location enabler broadcasting Bluetooth radio signals to exchange data and information with other smart technology.
Once the smart beacon hub is activated in the store, the merchant has the ability to push out campaign messages to smartphones of potential customers in the vicinity of the store, track who is entering the store and who is at the counter to pay. For the customers, they are notified with a vibration or sound through their smartphone when they are in the vicinity of a store offering the hands-free payment solution.
The system recognizes a customer in the store through communication between the fastPay app and the smart hub via BLE technology. When a customer is within 50cm of the store counter, the smart hub on the counter triggers the smart phone application to share the credentials and location information to the server via the Internet. When ready to make the purchase, the customer informs the merchant that they will be paying via fastPay where the merchant then checks the web platform on their tablet to confirm the name of the customer. To complete the payment process, the merchant enters the purchase amount on the tablet and a receipt is sent to the customer’s smartphone.