Quick Serve Restaurants Will Catalyze Mobile Payments

Mobile payments have been garnering major attention recently with the news that many nationwide food chains such as Burger King, Wendy’s, Starbucks, and Taco Bell, are offering their customers the option to pay with their phones.

While merchant payment apps will be a driver in changing consumer habits to be more mobile friendly, business advisory firm Mooreland Partners says that the next evolution in payments will come from multiple parts and strategies in the payments ecosystem.

They see mobile wallets, the movement towards digital banking, and the blurring of the lines between online and offline shopping coming together to make the mobile device the central hub of commerce.

However, the quick serve restaurant industry is in an increasingly prime position to get consumers to pay with mobile devices.

With so many quick serve restaurants (QSR) providing their own branded apps, a major contributor to consumer adoption will be a “combination of loyalty as well as other services that enhance personalization or convenience,” according to Mooreland Partners Executive Director, Peter Gonzalez.

There’s an ample opportunity for QSRs to be at the front of the mobile push. It makes sense for customers to use, since they can take advantage of loyalty rewards, as well as the ability to preorder, and skip lines.

QSRs can gain valuable data on what’s selling, and where. This data is compelling enough that “by the end of 2014 nearly every major QSR will have launched or piloted a solution,” according to Gonzalez.

There’s a good chance that 2014 will be the year fast food and mobile payments become inextricably linked.