Soft Launching of the First Cashless Self-service Laundromat in Brunei

The Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry of Brunei Darussalam (AITI) in collaboration with Beep Digital Solutions Sdn Bhd officially launched its first cashless payment solution for laundromat services at LaundryHub, Sengkurong Branch, as part of their Cashless Society pilot project.

The event launched with the first tap on the credit card terminal, symbolising the start of digital payment services for the unattended cashless laundromat. Attending the event were senior officials and representatives from AITI and Beep Digital Solutions Sdn Bhd.

This pilot project will continue to roll out digital payment solutions at selected outlets under LaundryHub. Beep Digital Solutions Sdn Bhd has also enabled businesses to streamline operations with the introduction of its remote monitoring tool where laundromat operators can now remotely monitor all payment collection made at their respective outlets in real-time.

In the next phase, the solution offered will also include QR code payments with a new exciting feature involving QR code redemption where customers can redeem purchases through a QR code issued through any online or digital channel. According to Beep Digital Solutions, they have taken into account not only the use of cashless as a payment option, but also the betterment of the customer experience and the streamlining of the merchant operations.

Cashless Society is one of AITI’s pilot project to facilitate digital industry development and innovation in Brunei Darussalam. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between AITI and Beep Digital Sdn Solutions was signed on 27 November 2020 to mark the collaborative partnership in developing and implementing the Cashless Society Pilot Programme. There are three targeted areas namely laundromats, retail or convenience stores, and paid parking. The objective is for businesses to adopt and deploy digital payment system in their businesses.

As part of the pilot project, the collaboration will also be introducing its Smart Retail Solution where retailers and microbusinesses can extend their reach to customers through the Beep virtual store, an easy to use ecommerce store that can be set up without the need of any specialised development, whilst enabling full integration with any offline or physical presence.

Apart from that, a Smart Parking Solution, Parking.BN, which is expected to be rolled out in the first quarter of 2022, will also be introduced, where customers can make payments and reservations through the Parking.BN application. Discussions are currently ongoing with a number of parking operators to implement the cashless and smart solution for the parking operators. As part of the solution offering, users will be able to make cashless payments, undertake reservations, renew season parking passes and also view available parking slots through their mobile devices.

The solutions developed will make it easier for customers to interact with merchants or service providers. Although not without any challenges, particularly technical challenges as this involves a lot of software to hardware integration where Beep Digital Solutions had to reach out to a number of domain experts. On a positive note, the whole project provides the company a new boost of capabilities and enhanced their internal competencies.

This pilot aspires to help to improve business efficiency and productivity by adopting digital payment solutions and to provide consumer with the ease of transaction and provide seamless cashless transactions experience. Moving forward of the Cashless Society Pilot Project, in the near future AITI hopes to see take up of similar solutions in other industrial verticals such as smart vending machines and smart lockers.