By Conn Byrne, Executive Director for Integrated Payments, Payroc
In 2024, cash accounted for less than 10 percent of all UK payments for the first time, according to UK Finance. Across most of retail, that is a familiar story, but in unattended payments it marks something more structural: laundry, parking and amusement were built on coin boxes long before they were built on card readers, and plenty of that hardware is still in the field.
So the question facing the software providers building these systems is not whether the coin box disappears, but what replaces it. For years the answer was assumed to be a card terminal bolted to the machine. That is no longer a given. QR codes and NFC beacons offer a credible alternative at a fraction of the cost, and consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable paying with their phones. Neither fact settles the harder question: whether a method built for convenience can be made secure enough for a site with nobody around to monitor for issues.
The capital case for leaving terminals behind
Scale is what tips the cost comparison so heavily. Take a partner running 50,000 amusement machines: ripping out what is there and buying 50,000 terminals is a huge capital investment. Use QR codes or NFC beacons instead, and the cost to deploy or update is a fraction of that. Where margins are thin, and device counts run into the tens of thousands, that difference often decides whether a rollout goes ahead.
What began as a workaround for smaller operators is now shaping how ISVs plan deployments worth millions. We are already seeing real growth in QR-based payments, particularly in amusement, where we feel slightly ahead of the curve. But cheaper deployment only helps if the method suits the site it is going into.
No single setup fits every site
The mistake is assuming one answer covers everything. A busy pub, a remote roadside charger and an unstaffed hotel lobby could not be more different in how they are used or targeted. An unattended pool table in a bar full of people carries a low fraud risk, because there are people around it the whole time. An EV charger in the middle of nowhere is another matter: go QR-only there, and you are inviting someone to stick a fraudulent QR code on top. That site wants a big, tamper-proof terminal that simply sits there and keeps working.
Finding a solution is something that will differ depending on the site, whether the answer is an app, a QR code or a physical terminal, with security requirements varying according to how unmanned the setting is. This is where the choice of payments partner matters.
The point is not to back QR over terminals, or contactless over either. It is the flexibility to deploy the right combination of terminals, QR and NFC for each environment, rather than forcing one approach everywhere. The provider who offers that range and makes each method safe is the one worth partnering with.
Fraud follows the unmanned machine
Then there is the problem the cost case cannot solve. The very thing that makes a QR code cheap, that anyone can print one and stick it on a surface, is what makes it risky.
Evidence of that is already on UK streets. The RAC has reported that fake QR codes stuck to car parking machines have risen by 1,300 per cent over the past three years. A fraudulent code is overlaid on a legitimate one, the customer scans it expecting to pay, and the payment is quietly redirected to a fraudulent site without the customer knowing. The same trick is turning up at charging stations. In a staffed shop someone might spot it; at an unattended machine nobody does, and the customer often does not realise until the money has gone.
None of this is unique to QR codes. As a rule, the further a payment device sits from a person, the more vulnerable it is to fraud, which is why pay-at-pump remains one of the largest sources of card fraud. UK consumers are among the most comfortable in the world with contactless and QR payments, but trust is easy to lose and slow to win back.
Fixing it is an engineering job rather than a marketing one. It means tamper-evident design so a code cannot be quietly overlaid, secure routing so a scan can only reach a legitimate destination, and enough consumer education that people know what to look for. The aim is convenience, with a cautionary tale built in, for partners and consumers alike.
What the next phase will reward
Unattended payments will keep moving away from the fixed terminal, because cost pressure alone makes that close to inevitable. The pace is far less predictable. Payment markets tend not to shift gradually; they sit still for years and then move all at once, which is broadly what happened with contactless.
When that moment arrives for QR, the operators who benefit will not be those who deployed fastest or most cheaply. They will be the ones whose customers scanned a code and had no reason to think twice. Security is what turns a cheap deployment into a lasting one, and it is worth getting right before the shift, not after it.
