The Food and Beverage (F&B) market is one of the most mature segments for integrated payments and software with a number of lighthouse brands such as Toast and Lightspeed leading the way. The purchase by Epos Now of its partner Yoello demonstrates the pace of change, and the vital need to support vertical-specific payments use cases to succeed. Epos Now, who already support 80,000+ merchant locations, has traditionally focussed on face-to-face interactions, but Yoello allows it to support a range of CNP use cases such as order and pay at table, click and collect and home delivery. This combination of physical and digital allows them to have end to end control of their service offering and, most importantly, control the flow of payments via their partnership with Adyen. 

Controlling both F2F and CNP user journeys allows players such as Epos Now to earn attractive payments margins on a larger volume of transactions as well as take volume from higher cost delivery platforms such as Deliveroo and Uber Eats. Combining these channels allows merchants to drive incremental revenues by reaching new customers, as well as a range of back-office benefits such as easier reconciliation, supplier simplification, centralised reporting etc. In the specific case of Yoello, they also bring an Open Banking capability which offers merchants a lower-cost alternative to card payments. 

F&B is again leading the way in software and payments. We expect to see vertical industry consolidation as SaaS platforms seek to offer a wider range of omni-channel payment use cases to merchants. This trend presents an opportunity and a challenge to their PSP partners – more volume, but a more complex set of needs.