English League One football club Bury has introduced cashless payment services at its home stadium through its partnership with away shirt sponsor, Tappit.
The Energy Check Stadium at Gigg Lane is said to be the first stadium in English football to implement such services.
The move is designed to cut queue times for supporters buying food and beverages on a match day. Fans will be able to use their prepaid Tappit card to pay for refreshments in the members suite at Gigg Lane, and in the Starkies restaurant, the social club and the retail shop.
To ‘spend’ money, visitors simply tap the object against a scanner that records the payment amount. To load funds another tap does the trick. The transaction is competed in real time and the system is automatically updated so the visitor knows their balance and organisers have instant reconciliation.
The Tappit cashless solution uses Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, allowing data to be stored on an object that can communicate with an RFID device.
Wristbands can communicate with readers to enable access to an event, to load and redeem funds against purchases or activate social media.
“We’re hugely excited to bring new technology to the club,” Bury’s commercial director, Matt Caren, said, according to the About Manchester website.
“Offering our fans the chance to go cashless at Gigg Lane is such a positive move for us. Tappit is becoming much more than a shirt sponsor, partnering with an organisation that has this expertise gives us the chance to improve the match-day experience for our fans. It also helps us find out more about the behaviours of our supporters and learn how best we can communicate with our fans moving forward.”
Tappit chief executive Rob Groombridge added: “When we first spoke to Bury about sponsoring the club, we discussed taking the stadium cashless and were delighted to find the club is so keen to embrace new technology. This is the first step in Bury’s journey to becoming the UK’s first cashless stadium, leading the way in payment innovation within football. We look forward to giving Bury fans a great cashless experience for years to come.”
Tappit became the away shirt sponsor of Bury in July after its parent company Sappaya partnered with the club. Sappaya’s PaySec brand appears on the front of Bury’s home shirts.
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