The vast majority – 88 per cent – of European payments professionals think that 'no checkout' at physical merchants in Europe is five years or more away, according to a poll by the European Payments Council (EPC). And 55 per cent see this futuristic retail technology as being 10 years or more away. The EPC asked professionals in the payments industry when they thought no checkout at physical merchants would become a common practice in Europe.

The results were as follows:

• In 3 years (12 per cent)
• In 5 years (32 per cent)
• In 10 years (29 per cent)
• More than 10 years (26 per cent)

But cashier-less shopping is already a reality (although not common practice) in the US and it's possible that Europe could follow suit sooner than some expect. Last year, Amazon launched a pilot for its 'checkout free' Amazon Go grocery store in Seattle, US, using 'just walk out' technology. The shop then opened to the public in January this year. The cashier-free store, which enables customers to pick products from shelves and leave without going through check-out, uses advanced computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning technologies. The tech giant has recently announced it will open three more Amazon Go stores: one in San Francisco and two in Chicago.

However, research by Paysafe found that 52 per cent of UK consumers would not trust checkout free stores due to fears over fraud and data privacy.