New App Makes It Easier For People In Vancouver To Pay For Meals

Residents in Vancouver are getting a little more convenience in their lives thanks to a new app that lets them pay for their meals.

According to a report, the co-creator of PayByPhone, a parking app that lets you use your mobile phone to pay for parking, has launched Glance Pay, a mobile app for people who eat out. The app enables diners to pay for dinner at 46 restaurants in Vancouver. Consumers take picture of the bill using the app, input the amount and then they are free to leave.

“You get to leave quickly, you get automatic rewards, you get digital receipts and it’s just easier and faster to pay,” said Desmond Griffin, cofounder and CEO of GlancePay. He added that restaurants that use the app can also offer loyalty programs. Only major credit cards, not PayPal, are accepted payment methods for the new app.

“All wait staff know instantly the second your payment is confirmed. They get notified instantly through their screen, and they know exactly when someone has paid,” Griffin added in the report. “Compare that to cash, where if someone is pretending to put cash in the bill, you don’t know what they’ve put in or if they’ve put anything in and then staff has to walk over when they get a moment and investigate the bill.”

Glance Pay isn’t the only player making it easier for consumers to pay for their meals. In the U.S. and Canada, there are a handful of competing apps, including Apple Pay and the Starbucks app, which let you pay without whipping out a credit card or cash.

Apple Pay, for its part, has been slow to take off in the U.S. “Only one in four people with iPhone 6s have actually used Apple Pay,” said tech expert Lindsay Smith in the report. “About 50 percent of those people said it was just as easy to use as their debit card or more easy to use, but it’s really got to have a significant benefit in order for you to invest in changing your behavior.”