Although encountering a company that doesn't have a debit machine or some means of accepting electronic payments is increasingly rare, POS terminals do not have an especially long history. Technological advances notwithstanding, a great level of security and reliability is what makes merchant account services beneficial for consumers in addition to merchants. Reviewing the brief but important background and development of POS terminals reveals how this method of accepting payments has changed and become a part of routine commercial transactions.
The POS Terminal Timeline
POS, or point of sale, was not the first manner in which charge card payments were accepted by retailers. Before 1979, charge card payments were processed differently, with mixed results for both merchants and consumers. Predecessors to the POS terminal included:
• Manual imprinters
• Electronic authorizations
For a lot of consumers, a manual imprinter might appear to be a genuine relic, only relied upon by merchants in a power failure or offline situation. Indeed, the entire process of imprinting customer information on duplicate or triplicate merchant payment slips was often cumbersome. Before merchants could call in transactions and receive instant approvals, the process was relatively slow as well. With instant approval and transfer capability now standard procedure, merchants can receive their deposits on a more timely basis even if they need to resort to this rather outdated type of credit card payment acceptance. The electronic authorization system wasn't without its challenges either, as merchants often spent a rather stretch of time on the phone waiting to obtain approvals.
By the early 1980s the POS terminal had evolved from the cumbersome electronic information capturing terminals originally created by Visa and MasterCard. Accordingly, credit and debit machines became much more of an asset to merchants in terms of providing an efficient way to process electronic payments. This really is likely because of the magnetic data stripe being added onto the backs of charge cards. POS terminal options have included:
• Verifone ZON, Tranz, and Omni
• Hypercom TZP and TZ Plus
• Lipman Nurit line
Verifone, Hypercom, and Lipman have progressively produced dependable credit and debit machine processing terminals. The ZON terminal, arguably the first genuinely modern POS option, continues to be considered an industry standard, in spite of the continued technological evolutions. Likewise Hypercom has many impressive models that provide ideal options no matter what business size or need, with high-end terminals that are able to handle substantial consumer processing applications. Direct payment systems such as Interac make debit machine transactions easier and more advantageous also.
The Value of Selecting a Reputable Merchant Account Provider
Credit or debit machine capabilities can be very beneficial to merchants, provided they select quality products. Accordingly, using a reputable merchant account provider ought to be paramount. Selecting POS terminals with the help of a reputable provider will likely ensure the highest standard of security and reliability for you and your customers.
