Revolut's Pay with Smile Test: Will You Pay by Face?

Emily Jones · 2026-09-25

Facial recognition is moving from your smartphone screen to the coffee shop counter. UK fintech Revolut is now trialing biometric payments at Kiss the Hippo coffee shops in London, and it's making people wonder: are we finally ready to pay with our faces? The pilot uses Revolut's Pay with Smile system, which the company calls the UK's first in-store facial recognition payment system. It runs through Revolut Register, the company's point-of-sale platform, and there are no extra fees for merchants who participate. Like other biometric payment efforts, the goal is simple: speed up checkout in busy places. But Revolut's trial is still early, and whether it changes how we pay remains to be seen. "The Revolut announcement of a pilot at a single coffee chain's locations brings it to parity with several offerings in the U.S. market and reinforces the slow pace of adoption of biometric authentication at the point of sale," said Christopher Miller, Lead Emerging Payments Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research. "2026 has seen work on vendors refining their pitches and identifying the right use cases for implementations." ### Why Biometric Payments Haven't Taken Off Yet It's a bit surprising that biometric payments aren't everywhere already. After all, you probably unlock your phone with your face or fingerprint dozens of times a day. So why not pay that way too? A few places have made it work. In South Korea, software firm Toss has helped drive adoption. "Toss began piloting FacePay in convenience stores like 7-Eleven, with merchants reporting that it was great for business because when consumers came to the counter with their hands full, they didn't have to put products down to retrieve their wallet or phone to make the payment," said Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research. "Today, Toss reports that eight million users have enrolled in FacePay and it's available for use at over 370,000 merchants," he said. ### The Barriers That Remain Other biometric payment efforts have found a home in high-traffic spots like sports arenas and stadiums, where faster checkout is a clear win. But moving beyond those venues is tricky. - Merchants may need to invest in or upgrade in-store infrastructure to support the technology. - Consumers need to see a real advantage over existing payment methods. - That's especially true in the UK, where contactless payments are already deeply embedded in daily life. Then there's the question of awareness and consent. Most biometric systems require customers to voluntarily share their biometric data, so trust and privacy become big factors. "Data privacy is always a concern, as we are seeing in the U.S. with the Flock license plate readers, and that pushback may well extend into using these advanced technologies to make payments easier," Apgar said. "Cultural differences in how the tech is perceived may very well see facial recognition for payments become popular in some parts of the world while being shunned by consumers in others." So, will you soon be smiling to pay for your latte? Maybe. But for now, it's a small pilot with big questions. The technology works, but whether shoppers embrace it is another story. Keep an eye on your local coffee shop—you might just see someone paying with a grin.