At the World Cup venue of Hanover, this problem was claimed to have been resolved by T-Systems ePayment solution.
 
Fans paid for their snacks with a chip card, which they could buy at the stadium ticket office or at an advance sale outlet and then charge with whatever amount of money they chose, using the credit to buy food, drinks and fan items. Kiosks were provided with payment terminals, and customers simply pressed their chip card onto the terminal. The system then automatically deducted the appropriate amount.
 
Mobile vendors selling beer and pretzels also carried portable terminals that were used for payment, and all terminals were connected via a local network, infrared or radio with the back office system which managed all the transaction data.
 
When fans needed additional credit, they could quickly top up their cards again at charging terminals. Converting hard cash into electronic cash made long queues a thing of the past, with buyers not needing to search their wallets and vendors not needing to provide change. Any left-over credit was discharged later and returned to the customer.
 
T-Systems developed and installed the ePayment solution to interact, via interfaces, with the ERP systems operated by the club that owned the ground, the stadium caterer, the ticketing and access monitoring platform.
 
Special cryptographic procedures and encrypted transmission routes excluded the possibility of misuse, and, with so little cash circulating within the stadium bounds, the risk of robberies were also reduced.
 
The idea of 'cashless commerce' is ideal, and I believe the likelihood is that SA will have evolved into a more cashless society in four years time anyway. It is much easier to work with bank cards, for the sake of convenience, says Gert Schoonbee: GM for business development and strategy at T-Systems SA.