How Moneris® and McDonald's® Canada teamed up to help customers go contactless.
The Company
With over 1,400 restaurants in Canada serving more than 2.5 million customers every day, it isn’t difficult to understand why a dependable payment software system is necessary for a company as large as McDonald’s® Canada (“McDonald’s”). Choosing the right payment processing provider is no easy feat, and Dave Simsons, VP of Shared Services and IT for McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Limited, had the onerous task of searching for a point-of-sale payment solution for all of the restaurants. As a Moneris customer for ten years, he didn’t have to look very far.
The Challenge
McDonald’s has always been committed to the security of its customers’ debit and credit
information and using the latest technology to ensure that it complies with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. In order to keep abreast of changes and developments in the payment processing field, it’s useful to have the assistance of an industry authority; and for McDonald’s, that’s where Moneris comes in. “Moneris has its finger on the pulse of the industry,” Dave explains, “Moneris keeps us up-to-date on developments in the payment processing space related to equipment evolution, trends, security, and card network changes.” After almost ten years of working together, Moneris has developed a deep understanding of McDonald’s and its Canadian business, and is able to provide tailored solutions that are right for them. “Moneris knows that speed, security, and reliability are the keys for us to be able to satisfy our guests with our payment solutions,” Dave says, “and they keep those needs front and centre when they design and implement solutions for us.”
So when the time came for McDonald’s to update their existing POS payment system and incorporate up-to-the-minute contactless technology, Dave turned to Moneris—Canada’s largest payment processor—to help. Moneris has the resources and expertise to deliver and support an end-to-end solution for a large national organization, which was what originally led McDonald’s to work with Moneris, and is one of the reasons why McDonald’s continues to do business with Moneris today.
Moneris keeps us up-to-date on developments in the payment processing space related to equipment evolution, trends, security, and card network changes.
- Dave Simsons, VP Share Services and IT for McDonald's Canada
The Solution, Contactless Payments
While it may be difficult to correlate increases in sales directly to the implementation of a contactless payment solution, it’s undeniable that contactless transactions are faster than cash transactions—and in the quick service restaurant business, this is extremely important. Ranging from 10 to 12 seconds faster than chip and pin transactions, the easy-to-use contactless payment solution provided by Moneris allows McDonald’s to serve its Canadian customers more quickly. “Our investment in contactless solutions is driven by our desire to offer our guests new and convenient payment options when they visit us,” Dave explains. “Our customers are voting with their wallets, and they’re increasingly choosing
contactless payments for the convenience and speed it offers.”
Transitioning to a new payment solution is never an easy task, and McDonald’s’ experience was no exception. But throughout the implementation of these large, complex, and simultaneous initiatives, Moneris remained a true partner to McDonald’s, as Dave explains. “The original chip and pin transition required a re-terminalization effort across our entire restaurant base, and the first generation of devices developed for the Canadian marketplace were problematic. This was an industry issue, but Moneris partnered with us, working side-by-side over a period of 18 months to replace the devices throughout our entire restaurant base with the iPP320 pin pad that we currently use.” In each of their restaurant locations, McDonald’s chose Ingenico® iPP320 pin pads with Moneris’ POSPAD software to process all of their debit, credit, and gift card transactions. This gave McDonald’s the ability to accept not only chip and pin, but also all contactless and magnetic stripe forms of payment from the major card networks. As part of their relationship, Moneris also worked with McDonald’s to develop a purpose-built pin pad cable that would be able to withstand the high volume and harsh environment of their drivethru windows across the country. “Both the pin pad and the cable have been performing incredibly well for us,” Dave explains, “the overall design of our payment solution from Moneris provides us with class-leading speed, security, and reliability — our three most important criteria in a payment solution.”
Results
For McDonald’s, integration with their point-of-sale system was of the essence. They partnered with Moneris to exhaustively test and certify their systems to work with Moneris’ technology, and put the combined solution through rigorous quality assurance testing before piloting it in a select group of restaurants. While this meticulous quality testing may have been time-consuming, Dave believes all the hard work paid off when he hears the positive feedback the McDonald’s crew has been getting from customers. “They comment positively on the speed of the transaction processing and the convenience of being able to ‘tap and go’,” Dave explains, “my other set of customers—our restaurant managers and franchisees across the country also love the speed of the solution and the improved reliability.”
And since rolling out the new payment system in over 1,400 restaurants throughout Canada, McDonald’s has experienced more than just happy customers—it also has happy employees and technicians. “The current solution is driving far fewer help desk calls and field service dispatches than our previous generation technology,” Dave explains, “in fact, we’re seeing less than half the call volume we were previously seeing.”
So now, with comprehensive contactless payment systems firmly in place, customers can look forward to their next McDonald’s meal—with shorter waiting times and a little less weight in
their wallet.
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