Foot the restaurant bill through iPhone | The Money Times

Foot the restaurant bill through iPhone | The Money Times

With the latest technology interceding, diners can now pay their bill in “less than a minute” through their iPhones.

One of the Britain’s biggest chain restaurants Pizza Express has initiated this service along with Paypal, an online payment company.

Pizza Express will be offering the service from this week in its 370 outlets. For the moment, the service will be available only for Apple iPhone users. However, to avail such facility, the users will have to download the application.

How to make the payment?

When the customer is about to pay the bill, he will be given a 12 digit code to be used for making the payment through iPhone.

The consumer and the restaurant’s treasury will receive an electronic confirmation, instead of receipt, that the bill has been successfully paid. This is done particularly to evade any confusion among the staff so that they don’t keep wondering why the person has left without paying the bill.

With just the help of few clicks, the user can leave the fast-food outlet whenever he feels.

Other features of the app

Besides paying the bill, iPhone customers can even take advantage of other features offered on the app.

Starting from finding and booking a table in Pizza Express, viewing menus to special offers and receipts, everything can be accessible with the help of the app. The users can even find the nearest Pizza Express outlet from their current location.

Pizza Express is even mulling to install free in-house wifi for the users to make easy and quick payment.

Chief Executive of Pizza Express Mark Angela said, “We knew there was no point just launching an app for the sake of it, so we waited until we had a system that could genuinely improve our customers' experience of eating out at Pizza Express.”

Mobile phones to ousted credit cards?

Undoubtedly, this facility will be quiet advantageous for the entrepreneurs who want to rush for their meetings, people who often forget their wallets, students who want to attend their classes on time and many more.

Contemplating the use of advanced technology, such facilities have become the need of the hour.

Cameron McLean, general manager of merchant services at PayPal, said, “Over a million UK PayPal customers have made a payment on their handset so combining our payments experience with Pizza Express's ground breaking app should be a perfect combination.

“The line between the high street and the online world is blurring, and innovative brands like Pizza Express recognize that payment by mobile makes a great service even better.”

Interestingly, the surging importance of mobile phones seems to oust the usage of credit cards.