Fully Contactless Workplace Refreshments

28 November 2022 | By Nicola Hill

As Technology replaces cash in vending machines, East Midlands Vending Ltd are proud to be one of the first Vending companies in the UK to be completely contactless, putting safety and customer convenience first.

The first debit card issued in the UK was by Barclays Bank in 1987 and it seems that this is when the debate surrounding a cashless society began. Covid 19 and the rise in contactless payments since early 2020 has now increased the move towards us being a cashless society and is growing real momentum in Workplace refreshments and Vending machines.

Out of an adult population of 51 million in the UK, approx. 1.2 million consumers mainly used cash for their day-to-day shopping pre-covid, even though most of these people also used other payment methods.

How did Covid 19 affect contactless payments ?

During 2020, this changed dramatically with 83% of the people in the UK using contactless payments, the age group 35-44 being the highest users at 89%. As society returns to some form of normality post COVID this change towards contactless has continued in its momentum.

In addition, we have seen a rapid rise in the use of mobile phones and watches as a point of sale, 17.3 million people are now registered to use this method, a rise of 7.4 million in one year and 84% of these people made a purchase this way.

The younger generations are changing our payment habits even further by adopting new technology that has been promoted by Apple Pay & Google Pay and it seems that these trends will continue to grow at pace, in fact it is possible to envisage that the under 40’s age group will simply not see the point of cash as they have perfectly good alternatives.

How will this Affect us all day to day ?

The evidence from the data suggests that we were already moving away from cash-based payment systems prior to the pandemic and concerns that Covid 19 could spread via surfaces, induced companies to switch to contactless methods.  The Vending industry is at the forefront of this change and is reacting to the demands of its consumers.

East Midlands Vending are a completely cashless business and we promote contactless payments in all types of vending machines and workplace refreshments, with the use of mobile phones and watches becoming common place.

Our consumers can choose to use the Monyx app to make purchases, contactless Mifare cards or anyone of their own devices, we really are responding to consumer demand and leading the way in modern Vending.  

Worldpay predicts that Sweden will almost be cashless by 2024 with only 0.4% of transactions paid for by cash, one can envisage that this progress will be followed by most of the western economies of the world within a few years driven by the younger generations and not by any Government specific policies.

Data Source: UK payments Summary 2021 published in June 2021 by UK Finance

For more information contact East Midlands Vending Ltd or call 0800 002 9338