40 BCBusiness July 2014
The technology for a wallet-free
existence is here. But how ready are
British Columbians to fully embrace
paying with their smartphones?
Smart!
Get
I
t's lunchtime on a sunny Friday
on 8th Avenue in Vancouver
and the crowd of hungry office
workers waiting for Neapolitan
pizza from the Community
Pizzeria food truck is get-
ting long. The truck's custom,
850-degree-Farenheit wood-fired oven
has limited capacity, which slows things
down. But that's the pickup line—the
order line is taking no time at all. When
a new order is placed, owner Michael
Paul taps the total into a mobile device,
and hands the device over to the cus-
tomer, who swipes a credit card through
a magnetic stripe reader connected to
the device's headphone jack, and signs
with her finger. If she wants a receipt, she
enters her email address, but even with
that additional step, it takes about 20 sec-
onds. Paul says about half of his custom-
ers pay this way.
story by David Godsall
photograph by Paul Joseph
p040-047-MobilePayments_july.indd 40 2014-05-29 3:54 PM
