Missed our latest Powertranz Live? We sat down with Eldred Garcia, SVP of Business and Partner Development at Powertranz, and Luis Fernando Valladares of Meshra Ecosystem to talk about Pay at the Table, the technology bringing Caribbean and Central American hospitality up to speed with how guests want to pay.
Here are three things you don’t want to miss.
1. It puts payment entirely in the guest’s hands
Pay at the Table replaces the old routine of flagging down a waiter and waiting for a card machine with a device that sits right at the table. Guests can settle by scanning a QR code with their phone, splitting a bill across a group with individual QR codes, tapping their card or phone against an NFC-enabled device, or having a certified device brought to them if their table’s device doesn’t support tap.
None of it requires restaurants to rip out their existing point-of-sale systems. Meshra’s Ecosystem already connects to over 200 POS systems, so most properties just switch on a feature rather than start from scratch.
2. The table becomes a revenue channel, not just a payment point
While a device sits idle between orders, it can display venue-specific promotions, sponsored content, or embedded QR codes linked to offers, and every interaction is measured. Restaurants always have a “tap to order” button, so a second round or dessert is never more than a tap away.
According to Valladares, that extra layer of content and convenience can significantly increase ticket size, since guests who stay a little longer at the table tend to order more. For operators looking for new revenue beyond the bill itself, that’s a meaningful upside.
3. It solves a visibility problem that banks have lived with for years
Garcia described a pattern he’s seen across the region, which the team called “POS terminal roulette.” A restaurant may have a relationship with one bank, but with three or four card terminals sitting behind the counter, it’s up to whichever waiter grabs which terminal. The result is that financial institutions have historically seen only 40 to 60 per cent of transaction volume tied to their own merchants.
Because Pay at the Table ties every transaction to a specific merchant ID linked to a bank, that visibility gap closes. Banks finally get a full, accurate picture of the volume already occurring at their merchants’ properties, and it comes wrapped in network tokenisation, PCI Level 1 compliance, and geofenced device security that Powertranz builds into every solution.
Watch the full conversation
There was a lot more we did not cover in this blog, including how hotel groups roll out Pay at the Table across multiple properties in a single sync, and where AI fits into the guest experience over the next few years.
Watch the full show here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7485713980984832001?viewAsMember=true
