Revolut launches facial recognition payments in UK

Revolut has launched Revolut Pay with Smile in the UK, adding facial recognition authorisation to its in-store payment service.

The rollout connects the new payment method to Revolut Register, a point-of-sale system for hospitality businesses. Customers who opt in through the Revolut app can authorise a purchase by looking at the terminal instead of using a phone or wallet.

The system matches a customer's face against the selfie ID verification completed when they first signed up to the app. The Revolut app handles transaction authentication with end-to-end encryption, and merchants do not store personal data.

The move extends Revolut Pay beyond online and app-based transactions into physical retail settings. It also gives the fintech a more direct role at the till, where payment providers, banks, and point-of-sale vendors compete for merchant relationships.

Merchant push

A central part of the launch is an effort to appeal to independent venues facing higher operating costs. All Revolut Pay with Smile transactions will carry 0% processing fees for merchants, a pricing model the company is using to position the service against standard card acceptance charges.

The offer is tied to Revolut Register, which Revolut described as a modular two-screen register designed to combine payments, banking and floor operations. The terminal includes an eSIM backup to keep the system connected if a primary network fails during busy trading periods.

Merchants signing up for their first terminal are being offered the register at a discounted price of GBP £349.50 plus VAT, compared with a stated recommended retail price of GBP £699 plus VAT. The discount underscores how aggressively providers are pricing hardware as they try to win payment volume and broader software usage from small businesses.

For consumers, Revolut is pairing convenience with a loyalty incentive. Users who pay with the new feature will receive triple RevPoints on each transaction, giving the company another way to steer activity towards its own payment rails rather than external card networks.

Biometric checkout

Facial recognition at the checkout remains a sensitive area in payments because it combines convenience claims with questions about consent, data handling and trust. Revolut's approach relies on existing identity checks gathered during account onboarding rather than requiring merchants to build or hold separate biometric databases.

That distinction may matter as payment companies try to reassure users and merchants that biometric authentication does not expand the number of parties holding personal data. It also allows Revolut to use information already embedded in its customer relationship, which may help speed enrolment among existing users.

The launch is limited to the UK for now. Revolut described it as the first in-store facial recognition payment system launched by a licensed bank in the UK and Europe, positioning the product in a market where banks have generally moved more cautiously than specialist biometric or retail technology providers.

Revolut Business, launched in 2017, said it now serves more than 800,000 businesses. That customer base sits within a wider network of 80 million personal and business accounts, giving the company a substantial existing audience to target for both merchant services and consumer payment adoption.

That scale matters because biometric payment systems depend on participation from both sides of the transaction. Merchants need enough enrolled customers to justify new checkout methods, while consumers need enough places to use them for the option to become routine.

Alex Codina, General Manager of Merchant Payments at Revolut Business, set out the company's view of the opportunity in a statement accompanying the launch.

"We're expanding the Revolut Pay ecosystem and replacing outdated, fragmented tills with an efficient checkout experience designed to solve consumer and merchant pain points," said Codina.

The introduction also signals a broader strategic shift for Revolut as it deepens its presence in merchant acquiring and in-store commerce. Rather than acting solely as a consumer finance app, the company is trying to bring together payment acceptance, customer loyalty, hardware and day-to-day business operations in a single merchant proposition.

Whether shoppers are ready to adopt facial recognition for low-value everyday purchases such as coffee, meals and drinks will depend on how much they trust the system and whether the faster checkout experience feels meaningfully different from contactless cards and mobile wallets. UK customers can enrol for the service through the Revolut app.