'Sorry I haven't got any change' just won't cut it with a South Kensington Big Issue seller.
Simon Mott has been selling the Big Issue at his pitch outside South Kensington Tube Station for a couple of years and decided to offer people an alternative way to pay for the magazine.
Mr Mott saved up his money and bought a chip and pin Bluetooth enabled card machine from Swedish firm iZettle for £82.50 plus VAT and he hasn't looked back since.
He is currently the only one of 2,000 vendors across Britain to accept payment by card a trend that may catch on revolutionising Big Issue sales everywhere.
Simon said: "I'm sell around 10 extra copies a week through using the cad machine. I've already just about covered the cost of the machine after buying it in May. It has taken a while for people to trust it. But my regular customers have been great and started using it straight away and then it's caught on slowly. But after so many years of being told by people that they didn't have any change to buy the magazine, I thought I would do something about it. People have been surprised at first but it just makes sense and it works fine. It's totally secure and works like any other industry standard card machine with each payment needing to be authorised by your bank.
"I was homeless for three years and the Big Issue has been my savour. I was housed in January this year but continue to sell the Big Issue as I can't find work. I used to be a train driver on the Underground’s Piccadilly line until storms in 2000 brought a tree down and I crashed the train. I felt unsafe and couldn't continue to work. It was a struggle after this and I ended up in the West London Churches Homeless Concern's night shelter in Chelsea which is open from November to April.
"Big Issue seem interested in my new scheme and as far as I'm aware they've been looking into how they can role this scheme out for a while but the technology hasn't been available. But now it is it should be interesting to see what they do. This could be the start of something."
Ever the entrepreneur Simon has even opened up his own eBay store.
A spokesman from iZettle said: "iZettle is a card payment app that allows you to take payments using a card reader that connects to your smartphone or tablet via bluetooth. It has an accountancy utility that enables you to keep track of cash-flow and pin point exact payments. Simon came to in May and has been using the product ever since."
