Payment providers get compared on the obvious axes: transaction pricing, settlement, uptime, which markets and card schemes they cover, and how painful the migration will be. Those axes matter. But if you run a membership or loyalty program, or plan to, there is a quieter axis that rarely makes the comparison spreadsheet: what the terminal can do beyond taking payment.
Adyen is one of the providers where that axis pays off. Its terminals can read a wallet pass during the payment interaction itself, which turns the till's biggest loyalty problem, members the program never sees, into something the hardware solves on its own. This article explains what that looks like in practice, what else tends to drive a switch to Adyen, and how to approach the move if loyalty is part of your reasoning.
Why merchants switch payment providers at all
A payment provider is infrastructure, and merchants change infrastructure reluctantly. When they do, a few motives come up again and again:
- Consolidation. Running separate providers for in-store, e-commerce and different countries means separate contracts, reports and reconciliation. Moving to one platform for all of it is often the single biggest simplification available to a growing retailer.
- Reach. Expanding into a new market is easier when the provider is already licensed and connected there, with local payment methods included.
- Terminal estate. Aging hardware needs replacing anyway, and a fleet refresh is the natural moment to reconsider who runs it.
- Data in one place. When every transaction flows through one platform, questions like "what did this customer buy across channels" stop being an integration project.
Adyen's pitch leans on all four: one platform for in-store and online, its own acquiring in many markets, and a terminal fleet it manages centrally. Whether that pitch fits your business is a conversation to have with them. What we can speak to is the fifth motive, the one we work with every day.
The loyalty case: identification in the payment tap
Every loyalty program lives on its identification rate, the share of member purchases the till actually links to a member. Each unlinked purchase is points not awarded and data not captured, and a member quietly concluding the program does not work.
Adyen terminals support Apple VAS, the protocol that lets a terminal read an Apple Wallet pass over NFC. Configured for it, the terminal picks up the member's pass in the same interaction as the payment: one tap, and the transaction is linked to the member before the receipt prints. Nobody asks "are you a member?", nobody digs for an app, and the queue keeps moving.
Two honest caveats belong here. First, this is a capability to enable, not a default; it is configured per terminal fleet, and the pass platform and Adyen exchange keys so the terminal can read the pass. That setup is one-time work, and it is work Stell has done before. Second, the tap-to-identify path on Adyen terminals is an Apple Wallet capability. Members with Google Wallet identify by presenting their pass's QR code or barcode at the same till, which links the purchase just as completely. One pass carries both routes, so every member is covered from day one.
If you want the deeper mechanics, we have written up how tap-at-the-till identification works and how to choose between QR, NFC or both.
Enrollment at the terminal
Identification is half the story. The same terminal integration also helps at the other end of the funnel: when a customer pays and no pass is found, the terminal can offer enrollment on the spot, right after payment. The moment a customer has just bought something is the moment they are most receptive to joining, and the terminal is already in their hand's reach. We cover why that moment matters in post-purchase enrollment.
What a switch actually involves
If the loyalty angle is part of your reasoning, plan the two tracks together rather than sequentially:
- The payments track is Adyen's home turf: contracts, acquiring setup, terminal rollout, and cutover from your current provider. Adyen runs this migration routinely and will scope it with you.
- The loyalty track is ours: issuing passes your members add to Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, configuring the terminal fleet to read them, and the key exchange that makes the tap work. None of it requires custom development on your side.
The sequencing insight is that the loyalty track does not have to wait for the payments track to finish. Passes work over QR and barcode on any till from the day they are issued, so you can launch the program before, during or after the terminal rollout, and the tap simply starts working as Adyen terminals arrive.
You also do not need to commit the whole estate to find out if this is worth it. One busy location with Adyen terminals is enough to see same-tap identification against your current baseline.
Talk to us first
Stell is an Adyen partner. We have run this setup on real terminals, we know which questions to settle early, and we can introduce you directly to the right people at Adyen instead of leaving you to start from a web form.
If you are weighing a switch, get in touch. We will show you identification and enrollment working on an Adyen terminal, help you scope the loyalty side of the move, and make the introduction when you are ready.
