he new year will see diners at fast food restaurants getting their burgers, buckets of chicken and french fries more quickly - and earning perks such as frequent flier miles or rewards points in the process. Following successful tests, several chains will offer patrons the option of paying for their meals with credit and debit cards.

McDonald's, the world's largest fast food chain, will implement its new payments system beginning in early 2003; Concord EFS will provide credit and debit card processing services for McDonald's-owned restaurants and franchisees. Jack in the Box will have a system in place at more than 840 locations by May 2003 and plans to have all of its 1,870 restaurants POS equipped by 2004. Burger King, Wendy's, KFC and Long John Silver's also will jump on the plastic bandwagon in 2003; customers at half of Subway's U.S. outlets already can use cards to pay for sandwiches.

Jack in the Box also recently announced that it has signed a merchant processing contract with NPC, which will provide authorization and settlement services for all Visa and MasterCard transactions at the restaurants.

The ultimate goal is double-edged: When the restaurants speed up the time required to take a customer's order, accept payment and serve the food, not only do customers benefit from shorter waits in line, but the chains are able to serve more people in a shorter amount of time. McDonald's strives to get customers in and out in 90 seconds. According to the Wall Street Journal, the average fast-food consumer eats at those restaurants 16.4 times a month; for frequent eaters it's 27.5 times.

The fast-food industry is one of the last major markets to accept plastic for payment. The chains were afraid that the additional time it took to process credit and debit transactions would end up taking the "fast" out of the equation. But recent advances in payment-processing technology have made those transactions quicker and cheaper to process. Diners will be able to swipe cards at the counter or drive-through window with no signature required - and it will take less than five seconds.

One difference from a few years ago is that restaurants are now able to take advantage of fast connections to processing networks to complete plastic transactions. By contrast, cash payments can take eight to 10 seconds.

The fast-food chains began testing plastic payments systems several years ago as part of a general overhaul, including menu selections and upgrading food quality, to improve customers' experiences. They found that not only does accepting plastic make diners happy, they also spend more.

Those increases in purchase volumes offset fees the chains will pay to credit card companies to process the transactions. A recent study released by Visa USA shows customers spend an average of 20-30 % more with plastic than they do when they pay with cash. Subway says the average transaction in its card-enabled outlets has doubled to $9.

Considering consumers' significantly increasing desire to use both credit and debit cards rather than cash, this is a smart move for the fast-food chains. And combined with the marketing push by several card companies to offer miniature and kidney-shaped cards that dangle from key chains, contactless scanning cards and wands that wave beams, fumbling for change or not getting the correct change back might become funny stories you'll tell the grandkids.