The McDonald’s fast-food restaurant chain has begun accepting RFID payments in Brazil, via the Sem Parar system commonly used for toll payments. The initiative is intended to offer greater convenience to customers throughout the country. Customers at McDonald’s drive-thru windows now have the convenience of using the Sem Parar system to pay for their meals from the comfort of their own vehicles without having to touch their wallets.
The initiative is a precursor to the solution’s planned installation of the system, in the coming months, at all McDonald’s locations that offer drive-thru services. “We are very happy with this partnership because it expands customer convenience, which is our main focus,” says Paulo Camargo, the president of Arcos Dorados Holdings, the largest independent McDonald’s franchise in the world, which manages the brand in 20 countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. “Consumers can choose where to buy and how to pay, which gives them a consistent consumer experience.”
“We have developed in Brazil an unprecedented payment technology in the world to offer maximum convenience to our customers,” says Fernando Yunes, Sem Parar’s president. “As the money and the card are being exchanged for handsets and applications, Sem Parar has gone a step further and created voice payments. All you have to do is say ‘I’m going to pay with Sem Parar,’ and that’s it—the account is paid.”
In addition to making the consumer experience more fluid, the agreement is strategic for both companies. For Sem Parar, it means its entry into a new market segment, and an expansion of its portfolio of urban solutions to more than 5.5 million customers. For McDonald’s, it creates customer comfort and greater speed at its drive-thru operations, in addition to fostering customers’ perception of its services as positive and innovative.
“We are very pleased to be partnering with McDonald’s,” Yunes states. “Together, we are going to improve our customers’ lives in the world’s largest fast-service network. We were born in tolls; we’ve grown fast in parking lots at malls, airports, clubs, hotels, hospitals and schools; we’ve gone into gas stations; and now we are inaugurating the solution for drive-thrus. We will facilitate our clients’ lives to the maximum, in more and more moments of their day-to-day activities.”
Recently, Sem Parar announced a similar agreement with Brazil’s Estapar parking network for automated billing via RFID-based payments. The agreement is expected to affect 1,000 lots, and the implementation is being handled by Fleetcor Technologies, which is working on the project and expects to complete it during the first quarter of 2019 (see Parking Network Adopts Automatic Payment System).