Don’t count out traditional payment terminals just yet

Over the last decade years, smart phones and tablets have fundamentally changed the way most people go their daily lives by intuitive behaviors. Today, when walking in to any small merchants, people will encounter the same clunky, outdated payment terminals and cash registers, almost occupied the space of their counters. If says so, smart payment terminal is a very attractive thing. The trend of open hardware and application market development hopefully transform payment devices into service devices, and there will be more compelling interactions between merchants and consumers. Merchants can use a variety of consumer-oriented applications and business applications to profit, and can provide new functions and services. At the same time, in the post pandemic, it will be more convenient for consumers to use more touch-free payment methods.

In the past, point-of-sale and payment ecosystems have operated independently and kept a good cooperative relationship. Nowadays, most changes of trends and using scenario have created more and more seamless integration to provide a more intensive customer experience. Meanwhile, these changes in payment have initiated whether the merchants can successfully achieve and satisfy customers’ loyalty.

Realize that the traditional regular payment terminals are limited and do not require much foresight. The functions and cost advantages of smart payment systems are too compelling, so merchants and payment service providers cannot ignore them. However, we are in a fairly large period, where old and new things must be coexisted.

Supporting old school and new hot

No one would assume that merchants will march in lockstep to embrace these new features. Early adopters are already developing the market, but it will take time to win over most of the smaller merchants. This means that acquirers moving towards the future must also maintain the past by supporting traditional terminals and smart payment systems.

This is reality, the acquirers must provide and support old estates that have an uncertain period in its legacy. However, this challenge is also opened a huge opportunity. There are many payment solution providers that can provide Android-based devices, but they don’t want and can’t accommodate traditional payment devices, and they won’t try. The acquirer needs supplier that includes new and old devices in a unified agnostic solution to support both.

Leveraging too many partners is complex for integration, but in the future real world according to new payment trend, the integration of point-of-sale and payment will be a step-by-step cannibalization in the application. All the better, it gives suppliers to provide integration capabilities eventually that meet the requirements. Instead of just providing an open platform or device, just like a Windows computer, many developers can play their tricks on it.