Launch of Apple Pay a 'pivotal moment' in perception of mobile payments

Flypay announced a collaboration with Apple last month and Weaver said the entrance of this household name into the sector could be crucial.

He told M&C​: “It’s going to be the tipping point for mobile payments. The simplicity of it is what really impresses and I think that will make it accessible to people who otherwise would never have thought about setting up a PayPal account or registering their credit card online.

“Getting people doing this for the first time is always the difficulty but I think we are now at that hurdle and once we have cleared it I think using your mobile to pay a bill in a restaurant will become as common as using the self-service till in a supermarket. Attitudes change very quickly, once that fear of the unknown is overcome.”

Yesterday Flypay announced it had received £7m of funding from global media outlet Time Out.

He said: “It allows us to build put faster and to scale out not just here but internationally. One of the benefits of working with a global partner like Time Out is that we can leverage their infrastructure and connections in cities around the world.

“We want to keep investing in the product and in the service to our customers. We also want to build on the ability to capture data and show what that data can do both for the operator and the customer.

“We want to extend our work with loyalty schemes. What we find is our client want to do something a bit special around loyalty and incentivisation and they want to do something that promotes their brand, not someone else’s. That’s an area we will investing heavily in.”

On the back of the announcement Dom Atkinson joined the company as its new head of data solutions. Atkinson has worked in the hospitality sector but also in the movie business.

Weaver also told M&C its first trial in the pub sector, with Fuller’s, was progressing well.

He said: “We should be able to go live with the first two pubs in the next couple of weeks. The thing we are hearing back from the staff who have tried it is that this is actually easier than the current solution. Cards behind the bar are a real problem and the pub sector has been crying out for a solution for some time now.

“We are now talking to other pub operators and it will be a case of finding the best and the easiest way to roll out.”