Cashless payments for school cafeterias

The end of lunch
money at school.

Every student gets a secure NFC wristband they simply tap to pay. Parents top up a wallet from their phone. Your cafeteria line finally keeps moving — and everyone can see where the money goes.

Encrypted bands Live parent wallet Attendance ready
● Band active
142.50 MAD
Yasmine’s cafeteria wallet
Lunch — main + fruit−22.00
Morning snack−8.00
Top-up from Maman+100.00
Tapped 12:04 · Al Massira canteen
AES-128 encrypted bands EN 71-3 certified silicone No radiation — passive NFC Real-time parent wallet
Why schools switch

Cash slows everyone down — and no one can see where it goes.

Coins get lost, counted, and argued over. Younger children forget their money; older ones spend it before they reach the counter. Staff spend the lunch break reconciling a cash box instead of feeding students. And parents have no idea what their child actually bought.

With Sentinel instead

  • The line moves at one tap per student
  • No cash on campus to lose or manage
  • Parents fund and follow the wallet from their phone
  • Daily limits and item rules you control
  • One dashboard for sales, students and attendance
How it works

Up and running in three simple steps.

No app to install for students. No new hardware for parents. Just a band and a tap.

1

Parents top up

Add credit to your child’s wallet in seconds — by card or over-the-counter cash-in. Turn on auto-reload so it never runs dry mid-week.

2

Students tap to pay

At the counter, one tap on the reader. No PIN, no cash, no queue. The band is cryptographically linked to your child — and only your child.

3

Everyone stays in the loop

Parents see each purchase the moment it happens. The school sees totals, trends and attendance in one place, live.

The platform

Everything a cashless cafeteria needs.

Built for the way Moroccan schools actually run — from the counter to the front office.

Secure tap-to-pay

Encrypted NFC bands that authenticate on every tap — not the clonable cards sold on the high street.

Parent wallet & auto-reload

Top up in seconds, set a low-balance reload, and never get the “I forgot my money” call again.

School dashboard

Live sales, student balances, top items and daily takings — exportable, and clear enough for the front office.

Attendance module

Turn the same band into a register. Tap in at the gate and mark presence automatically — available as an add-on.

Limits & item rules

Set a daily spend cap and flag items a child shouldn’t buy — allergens included — right from the parent app.

Instant band freeze

Band lost or misplaced? Freeze it in one tap and the balance is safe. Issue a replacement without losing a dirham.

Built for everyone at the school

One system. Three happier groups.

For schools

Cut cash-handling, speed up service, and run the cafeteria from a single dashboard — with attendance ready when you are.

Explore for schools

For parents

Fund the wallet from your phone, set limits, and see exactly what your child ate — all in real time, all in your hand.

Explore for parents

For students

A comfortable, water-resistant band with a breakaway clasp. Tap and go — no card to lose, no coins to carry.

See the band & safety
Security by design

Not the RFID band you’ll find on the high street.

Cheap wristbands broadcast a serial number anyone can copy with a phone. Sentinel bands use secure NFC chips with AES-128 authentication and a unique key per band. Nothing to clone, nothing to skim — and if the network drops, the counter keeps working.

AES-128 authentication Unique key per band Balance held server-side Keys rotated from the backend Works offline-tolerant

Why it matters in a cafeteria

The people with the strongest reason to clone a band are already inside the building. A serial number on a wrist isn’t enough. Every Sentinel tap is a cryptographic handshake the reader verifies — so a copied band simply doesn’t work.

How we keep it secure

Safe on a child’s wrist

  • Breakaway safety-release clasp — no snag or strangulation risk
  • Food-grade, latex-free, phthalate-free silicone
  • EN 71-3 toy-safety certified, with real test reports
  • IP68 — survives soap, hot water and daily wear
Health & safety

Reassuring for parents. Cleared on the science.

The band has no battery and only responds for a few milliseconds when it’s held to a reader. 13.56 MHz NFC is non-ionizing, and exposure sits far below a mobile phone — well within ICNIRP, IEEE and WHO limits. The same technology behind transit cards and hospital ID bands.

What we tell parents: “The bracelet does not emit radiation. It has no battery and only responds briefly when scanned. Its exposure is far lower than a mobile phone or Wi-Fi.”
Simple, honest pricing

Priced per school — with nothing hidden.

A yearly platform licence, one-time onboarding, and low-cost bands. The small top-up fee is always shown to parents, plainly. No surprises in the lunch queue.

Questions, answered

The things schools and parents ask first.

What happens if a band is lost?

Freeze it instantly from the dashboard or parent app — the balance is safe because it lives on our servers, not the band. Issue a replacement and the wallet carries over. A lost band is useless to anyone else.

Do parents need a special app or card reader?

No. Parents manage everything from a phone browser or app — top-ups, limits and history. Students only need the band. The school gets the readers for the counter.

Is the band safe for young children?

Yes. It uses a breakaway safety clasp, food-grade EN 71-3-certified silicone, and passive NFC with no battery and no meaningful radiation. See our Security & Safety page for the detail.

Can it work if the internet goes down?

The counter is built to tolerate brief outages so students are never turned away, and transactions reconcile automatically once the connection returns.

How long does it take to set up?

Most schools are ready within a short onboarding: we register students, personalise the bands, install the readers and train your staff. You can start with the cafeteria and add attendance later.

See Sentinel in your cafeteria.

Book a 20-minute demo. We’ll show you the band, the tap, the parent wallet and the dashboard — and map it to your school.