This French mobile payment app has a trick to make queues disappear

We had already had the opportunity to talk about DeluPay during CES 2024. Here is the French startup back at CES 2025 with good news to make your life easier when you want to pay with your smartphone. The new functionality presented intends to help you avoid queues.

Let’s just give you a quick reminder of what DeluPay is. This application aims to make you forget Google Pay, Apple Pay and others by promising a more practical user experience. DeluPay allows you to pay in three seconds flat using a QR Code, NFC or even Bluetooth LE. No need to enter a new bank card when the old one expires since the app connects directly to your bank account. On the merchant side, commissions are halved depending on the startup (compared to Visa or Mastercard for example), which makes this solution more profitable a priori. And, the icing on the cake, all transaction information remains in France and does not pass through any server abroad.

DeluPay against queues

Almost a year after its creation, the service claims to be present in 3,500 businesses and to have attracted 10,000 users. And it doesn’t stop there since DeluPay has formed a partnership with the Paris FC football club. A partnership which will allow it to implement its new anti-queue function.

The concept is not very complex, but quite clever. A brand will be able to delimit an area around its store. Within said area, users will be able to place an order directly via DeluPay before going to the store or restaurant which will, in the meantime, have had time to prepare the order and serve it upon the customer’s arrival.

The latter does not have to wait and, for the merchant, this allows him to speed up the service and therefore sell more. As part of the partnership with Paris FC, we can imagine a supporter who, at half-time, wants to buy a drink and a snack. Instead of waiting a long time at the refreshment bar, he places an order on DeluPay and then helps himself by going directly to the cash register reserved for this purpose.

To take advantage of this feature, users will be asked to allow DeluPay access to the GPS location of their smartphones. However, people who refuse for confidentiality reasons will still be able to rely on Bluetooth LE which will however require being really closer to the sign to be detected.

Once in the “FastTrack” area, the application notifies the user to invite them to view the items available for sale.

Go shopping faster

Note that this is not the only function of DeluPay aimed at streamlining the flow of people in stores. The company has also developed a system called “Self Checkout” for supermarkets.

You could do your shopping in supermarkets and scan the items in your basket each time. When leaving, simply scan a QR Code to make payment, no need to unpack your shopping bag.

In this scenario, DeluPay will be able to detect products that require verification by a security guard. This will then be able to ensure that no one tries to pass off a one-liter bottle of alcohol as a kilo of apples. But otherwise, you exit the supermarket almost as quickly as you entered it.

For large stores, this is potentially a service that will cost less than the maintenance of automatic checkouts and work. DeluPay thus claims to be in discussions for a French large-scale retail brand to adopt it.

Our meeting with DeluPay at CES 2025 was also an opportunity for the startup to send a message: “ talk about DeluPay to those around you, but also to your merchants “. There is in fact no secret: as practical as the service is, to function fully, it must convince as many people as possible. And good old word of mouth remains an excellent means of communication.

NB. Our journalist Omar Belkaab is present at CES 2025 in Las Vegas as part of a trip organized by the CTA, the foundation which manages the show.