It set out to achieve the aim in four ways: Introducing the payment systems industry in Europe today and taking a glimpse at how it may develop in the medium and longer terms; introduce the payment systems available today for vending, and their advantages and disadvantages; exchange views and experiences with different payment solutions; and discuss future trends in payment and how they may apply in vending.

Tackling these subjects involved no fewer than 15 presentations, from experts in their respective fields from around Europe.

The conference was opened by its Chairman, Jeff Allsop, Director, MEI UK International who welcomed the delegates, introduced the conference objectives, and explained that the event would be arranged in four sessions entitled Payments in Europe Today, Cash or Cashless?, Banknote Readers in European Vending?, and Trends: Tomorrow and Beyond.

First to the lectern was Alfred Kraxenberger, Group Vice-President, Giesecke & Devriendt, who set the proceedings in motion with a presentation on the Future of Cash. Cash remains competitive, he said, and cashless is not the answer to a less cash society.

Diedrik Bruggink, from Belgium, Senior Business Leader with Mastercard's Global Debit Team, then gave an insight into European banks' strategy towards cash and cashless payments. He made the point that cash and the cost of cash matters - banks can reduce internal cash costs and introduce cost-based pricing for cash, while banks and retailers together can stimulate cashless payments.

The views of European consumers on payment methods were then given by Jean-Philippe Ducart, of Test-Achats, Belgium, who quoted from recent research.

Moving into Session Two, Markus Eggar, Group Technology Manager, Selecta, Switzerland, spoke about an operator's experience with mobile and credit card payment. He suggested that evidence shows that cashless systems can increase business from anything between one and ten per cent and that cashless can be profitable in low-value transactions, although certain things need to be in place first. Contactless cards have a great future in public site vending, he suggested, provided that cost issues can be resolved.

Staying with contactless cards, the next speaker, Omar Rifat, a Senior Manager with Visa Europe, described both the One Touch system from Barclays Business and the Visa payWave offer, describing successful applications across Europe.

Klaus Meyer-Steffens, of National Rejectors Inc, Germany, then took over the lectern for a presentation about how the EVA and World Vending Association are working to meet the challenges presented by new coins. He summarised that cash is the easiest way of payment and is important for the future, particularly in low value transaction vending.

Coins were also the subject of the next presentation, by Andrew Yellop, Research Manager at MEI UK International, who tackled the growing issue of coin variability in the Euro zone. A number of coin features will affect a coin's EMS, he explained, most of these can be controlled by the Mints. Security, he added, can be greatly improved with current coin and validator technologies, reducing variability.

Session Three of the conference was headed by a presentation by Fioravante Allegrino, of Sogeda, who looked into the latest aspects of banknote readers. He was followed by Kelvin Reynolds, Director of Technical Services, British Parking Association, who gave an interesting address on accepting payments in unattended points of sale. This included what vending can learn from the parking industry - even though it became evident that the two do not actually have too much in common - for example, most parking payment machines do not give change!

Andrew Yellop then returned to the microphone to talk about optimising banknote validation, pointing out the increasing reliance on automatic validation and authentication. While vending in Europe is traditionally coin-based, the use of banknote validators is on the increase - although this equipment must be optimised in order to win consumers' acceptability and trust.

The fourth session got under way with a presentation by Stefano Bertoldo, Marketing Manager with Coges SPA, Italy, about mobile payment systems. Worldwide initiatives, high business opportunities and technological advances have made contactless technology a reality, he explained, and proximity technologies are being integrated into mobile phones meaning that they can work both as a ‘virtual' card and as a reader.

Modern technologies featured strongly in the next presentation, too, which was given by Csaba Szalai, Sales Engineer, Microtronic AG, Switzerland. Contactless cards, he revealed, have already reached the 33 million mark globally, and can be found in some 30 countries where they are being used in retail and vending (since 2007). They are ideal, he explained, for transactions of below 25 euro in value. He moved on to talk about the new near field communication (NFC) technology which is creating more opportunities for mobile phone payment systems.

All the way from New Zealand, Gary Lewis, General Manager, Vending Management Services then gave an insight into an operator's experience in telemetry on the other side of the world, and the final presentation of the day was given by Eric le Berder, Marketing Product Manager, Ingenico, France, who talked about the place of biometrics in automated payment systems.

The conference was then summarised and concluded by Jeff Allsop.

Our sympathy to any delegates from the UK who had travelled to Brussels by Eurostar or road, who then discovered that the channel tunnel had been closed due to the damage caused by the serious fire on the previous afternoon

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