WeWork occupants are trying out pay-as-you-work hot desks in a tie-up with payments company Mastercard.
Payments company Mastercard and office space provider WeWork have partnered on a new scheme that will use IoT to enable users of shared workspace facilities to hot desk on a pay-as-you-go basis.
The metered payment technology has been deployed at WeWork’s building at 600 California Street in San Francisco’s Financial District. This is home to WeWork’s Enterprise Innovation Lab, where WeWork and Mastercard are partnering on technologies including IoT, blockchain and artificial intelligence.
In this latest pilot, members are automatically charged only for the amount of time they actually use the desk, using technology powered by the Cisco Kinetic IoT data platform.
WeWork and Mastercard have claimed that the metering process will be seamless and cost-effective to members, while at the same time enabling WeWork to create more flexible offerings and charge based on real-time usage.
Read more: Cisco launches Kinetic IoT operations platform
Snack-as-you-go
The two partners have also set up a “frictionless retail experience” in WeWork’s snack and beverage self-service kiosks, known as Honesty Markets. This uses AVA’s SmoothShop technology to track purchases, so that WeWork members can purchase any item from the market without having to pull out a physical or digital wallet to make payments.
Both IoT deployments use a variety of Mastercard technologies such as digital payments, analytics, security, and loyalty, and bundles them with specialised IoT hardware and cloud software from a number of tech companies and start-ups.
Founded in 2010, WeWork’s most recent round of funding in July 2017 placed the company’s valuation at $20 billion, with 156 offices in 49 cities across 15 companies – although the number is growing all the time. In 2017, it has opened new co-working spaces in Beijing Buenos Aires, Paris and Sao Paolo, with new projects in Mumbai, Bogota and Melbourne expected to come online by the end of this year.
Read more: Mastercard: “Every connected device will be a commerce device.”
Real-time insights, smart environments
The two companies will use the pilot schemes to test the tech in work environments and communal spaces. Mastercard’s IoT solutions for shared spaces can be used to create smart environments in locations with multiple occupants or users, including co-working spaces, apartment and office buildings, college campuses, fitness clubs and vacation rentals.
“The vision is to create a work environment that can be personalized and where access to facilities, equipment and supplies is seamless without sacrificing security,” said Sherri Haymond, executive vice president of digital partnerships at Mastercard.
“We partnered with WeWork because it shares our vision, and its shared spaces enable us to gain real-time insights into the effectiveness of the products and to understand just how people are interacting with the technologies.”
Six weeks to go: On 21-23 November 2017, we will be holding our Internet of Banking and Payments event at Canary Wharf in London, giving attendees a unique chance to see how financial services companies are exploiting IoT technologies to connect the industry.
