By Carla Bridge, Inside Retailing Magazine
Broadband technology is opening the way for more innovation in point of sale technology - and faster speeds...
The adoption of broadband and ADSL by retailers is driving innovation in the category, with opportunities for add-on products now booming.
Pat O’Brien, GM of payment technology provider ProvencoCadmus, said broadband eftpos terminals would enhance the operation of ‘smart’ applications through their ability for two-way communication.
O’Brien said the next generation of eftpos terminals will have faster more powerful processors, greater amounts of flash memory and RAM as well as touch screen interfaces. This will give rise to a plethora of new on-board applications designed to drive payments through the terminals, growing both retailer revenue and profit.
Eftpos terminals spend at least 95% of their time doing nothing, only becoming active when a credit card is swiped.
“Once we start using broadband, we start seeing opportunities for creating other products on eftpos devices - particularly touch screen devices,” O’Brien said. “We see a toolkit being generated on these devices as we go forward.”
Opportunities include creating messaging or ordering services and on the spot warranty information. And as these operations don’t require certification, it’s expected uptake will be rapid.
“Merchants will be able to reach out and communicate with their customer base and build simplistic databases of who their customers are.
“For niche businesses such as hospitality, where you have a lot of recurring visits, it’s very powerful. You’ll be able to text all of your customers to tell them you have a special or about a new product line.
“While some of this is available for large retailers, for small retailers these products will become more and more powerful.”
O’Brien said that in addition to the introduction of chip cards and PCI compliance, ProvencoCadmus was expecting to see growth in the proliferation of the mobile phone as the mechanism of payment.
Markets such as Japan are already well established in mobile payments through services such as Felicia, and going off current indicators, O’Brien predicts the technology will come to the fore in Australia also in around 18 months.
Near field communications are currently being piloted in Victoria by Telstra and the National Australia Bank, allowing customers to swipe their mobile over a device sitting at the point of sale, eliminating the need to carry a credit card.
In other developments, O’Brien said increases in mobile banking and payments, alongside increased security and new communications devices would drive the need for retailers to adopt mobile payments in the future.
“Already most of the major banks have an iPhone application which allows you to move money around, but in the next two years we’ll see the arrival of applications that allow you to actually pay for things using your mobile phone.
“This will play hand in hand with broadband, because current eftpos terminals can’t talk to you over the air. So effectively, the transaction will appear on your phone, you’ll be able to respond to that transaction, and that will be communicated back to the broadband device.
“It’s quite exciting and is going to trigger a change in the user interface and the consumer experience.”
O’Brien said Australian mobile payment provider, mHITs, which uses text messages for payments, was just the beginning of the mobile transition, as well as companies such as Salt Technologies, a provider of secure mobile payments.
“It won’t just be financial transactions either that utilise mobile technology, I think there’ll be a growth in interaction between retailers and customer mobile phones.
“Today, the majority of communications is over SMS, yet you can’t text a merchant. With broadband we’ll see that change so there’ll be non-payment applications that will allow you to order a coffee, ask store hours, or find out if they have a pair of size 12 jeans.”
ProvencoCadmus is currently working with Bendigo Bank to implement broadband POS systems for retailers, with Suncorp expected to offer it shortly. O’Brien said that despite the rapid adoption by retailers of broadband and ADSL, the arrival of broadband hardware devices was laggin “Several of the banks are now ensuring that when they are ordering eftpos devices they have broadband capability. It’s early days yet, but it the banks are starting to put out the devices.”
This feature first
appeared in Inside Retailing Magazine. Click here to subscribe.