050821 McDonald's Cash Cards Make Fast Food Even Faster

McDonald's Corp. plans to expand to all U.S. stores the use of a new cash card that customers can wave in front of a machine to make payments in a matter of seconds.

The world's largest restaurant chain will offer MasterCard International Inc.'s Pay Pass service in more than 13,600 U.S. stores after introducing it in about 7,500, Cathleen Conforti, MasterCard's global Pay Pass product manager, said Thursday. The service uses radio frequencies to allow customers to pay for transactions simply by tapping or waving the card near a McDonald's checkout counter.

The new technology cuts wait times 12 to 18 seconds, Conforti said. McDonald's is stepping up use of the technology as it has been adopted by competitor Yum! Brands Inc., owner of the Pizza Hut and KFC chains, as well as retailers such as 7-Eleven Inc., CVS Corp. and some National Football League stadiums.

"We have actually gotten so much more interest from both the issuers' banks and the merchant side that we are going to be in many more markets than we expected to be in by the fourth quarter," Conforti said. "They find that they get a lot more activity, a lot more revenue, because they've got more customers that they can get in and out faster."

McDonald's began testing Pay Pass last August in New York and Dallas. The average total weekly amount spent by consumers using the new cards increased 28%, Conforti said.

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