Just what we needed - one more personal EMF device. :) Soon they'll have us cooking our own burgers remotely...while the cost of money keeps getting higher and higher and....

Monday May 28 5:08 PM ET

McDonald's Expanding Tests of Cashless Payments

CHICAGO (Reuters) - In its ongoing quest to cut service times for fast food, world's largest restaurant operator McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD - news) on Monday said it is expanding a range of electronic payment systems that let customers buy burgers without the hassle of digging out bills or credit cards.

In the Chicago area, McDonald's home market, regional operators recently voted to give their more than 400 area stores the option of letting customers purchase Quarter Pounders, french fries and other menu items using a payment device designed by Exxon Mobil Corp. three years ago for use primarily at its Mobil gas stations.

Customers wave the Speedpass -- a small barrel-shaped radio transponder -- at a reader located at a McDonald's drive-through's or at a counter inside the restaurant. Mobil lets customers link the Speedpass to a major credit card, which subsequently adds the McDonald's transactions to their monthly bill.

The transponder technology, first developed by state highways to speed payments at busy toll plazas, has been picking up speed with fast-food chains. Some franchisees at the Taco Bell and KFC units of Tricon Global Restaurants Inc., McDonald's next-largest
competitor, have been testing similar systems, according to reports in trade press.

``It's clear that cashless payments are something our customers are very interested in,'' McDonald's spokeswoman Lisa Howard told Reuters. The Speedpass system has been tested in nine Chicago area stores since October of 2000 before franchisees decided to expand it to their entire market, she said.

McDonald's, based in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, Illinois, began a similar test in 29 Boise, Idaho, area stores in April. There, operators let customers buy food using a cashless system developed by Wayne, Pa.-based FreedomPay Inc. called MicroTrak.

To use the system, customers in Boise load up a designated FreedomPay account on the phone or Internet with money from a major credit card. When they pay their tab using a transponder, the transaction amount is immediately deducted from the account. They can also get extra bucks by opting to automatically replenish their accounts when they run out, Howard said.

FreedomPay is working on similar agreements with other convenience retailers and is expected to announce additional partnerships soon, the company said in a recent press statement.

McDonald's first began testing cashless payment systems in Southern California more than a year ago. There, prompted by an idea from a local franchisee, the company set up a four-store test with transponders provided by the Transportation Corridor Authority of Orange County's FasTrak system.

That partnership is expected to grow to as many as 50 stores within two years, McDonald's Howard said. And in Long Island, New York, two McDonald's stores are preparing to test technology linked to the region's E-ZPass system this summer, she added.

Given the popularity of cashless transactions in a fast-paced society, it may only be a matter of time before McDonald's begins rolling out such systems nationwide.

Says Howard: ``It's still too early to tell. All of these are kind of in test mode.''

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