Revolut debuts face payments with 0% merchant fees

Revolut ran a pilot of Pay with Smile, described as the first in-store facial-recognition payment in the UK, from 24 to 26 September 2026 at three Kiss the Hippo coffee shops in London. Customers opt in in the Revolut app, then look at the camera on a Revolut Register terminal and are matched against the identity check from sign-up. Revolut charged 0 percent processing on Pay with Smile transactions during the pilot.

This is Revolut using its own POS hardware and its own KYC data to take the card out of the transaction entirely, and pricing acceptance at zero to do it. For independent hospitality, zero processing on an in-house rail is the sharpest price point anyone has put on a UK counter, and it only works because Revolut is issuer, acquirer and terminal vendor at once. The biometric consent model is also the part a regulator will look at hardest.

Whether the pilot extends beyond three sites and whether 0 percent survives it, how the ICO and the FCA treat biometric payment consent, and whether Revolut Register wins estates from Dojo, Zettle and SumUp on that price.

• paymentexpert.com
• Engadget