QR code

While scientists are debating blackhole surface might be two dimensional and its applications, back in Earth - there is little to no doubt about the dimensions and the applications of the 2D QR Code.

QR code, acronym for Quick Response code.?

Since the inception of Morse code system in the 1830s in the United States, several 1D and 2D code systems developed across the world to support the communication and the supply chain systems for the past two hundred years!

Among them, two distinct and famous ones are the Barcode and the QR code.

Barcode:

The first barcode, that had a design like a bullseye, was invented by two Drexel University students named Norman J Woodland and Bernard Silver in 1948. They were trying to solve the problems of the supermarket industry, which alarmingly needed a better method of inventory management and customer check-out. Later, in IBM, a better formatted barcode was developed which became the ubiquitous Universal Product Code (UPC) of product labelling and check-out stands.

By 1974, the barcode system turned into the modern-day Point Of Sale (POS) system.

The benefits of such as system include :

* Increased checkout productivity

* Reduced store service desk hours

* Decreased bookkeeping hours because counting coup ons and other tasks were done by the system

* Along with electronic scales at the register, speeding up weight measurement and pricing

* Positive customer acceptance

Intro of QR Code:

In about 20 years after the initial barcode scanners were introduced, some of the limitations became evident.

The most important one was that the scanner could read only 20 alphanumeric characters.

Embarking on this vision to solve prevailing limitation of the barcode, an engineer Hara Masahiro in Japan, invented a 2D barcode in 1994 employed with Denso Wave.

The company previously used barcodes to keep track of parts, but that system was inefficient. There were upward of ten barcodes on one box and thus requiring the need to scan the box multiple times.

A need to enable large volume of information to be conveyed in a single scan was the problem statement in front of Hara. It was thus developed in the automotive industry to address limitations in traditional Bar codes.

A QR code is marked by a two-dimensional pattern of square black and white dots. With the paternity of dots, it is possible to embed 200 times more information than a standard barcode.

The codes can contain basic information like links to websites or large volumes of data consisting of over 4,200 alphanumeric characters that are encoded into the patterns. To access the information, a person needs only scan the QR code.

Most smartphone users can use their camera to scan the QR code and initiate an action, such as opening a website link, viewing a restaurant menu, or even initiating a payment.

Some of the other types of barcodes in use are:

Code 39: One of the oldest barcodes around and a common symbology found in electronics, healthcare, and government. It is a lineal, 1D, alphanumeric code with the ability to include the entire 128 ASCII character set and extend to any length, only limited by the size of the label. If space is a concern, Code 128 would be a better choice to consider.

Code 128: Derived from the ASCII 128-character set (0-9, a-z, A-Z, and some special characters), this compact barcode is used extensively in packaging and shipping applications worldwide. Code 128 features an automatic switching setting that allows users to optimize it for barcode length.

Interleaved 2 of 5: Commonly found in warehouse, distribution, and manufacturing, Code I 2 of 5 is a numeric-only barcode used to encode pairs of numbers. Every two digits are paired to create one symbol. The number of digits used must be even for this format to work, so a zero is commonly added at the end of an odd set of numbers.

Universal Product Codes (UPC): Found on nearly every retail product, these barcodes were originally created for grocery stores to provide quick receipt printing and inventory tracking. After securing a UPC number, a manufacturer will receive a unique company number to combine with their individual product numbers.

International Article Number (EAN): Considered a superset of the UPC, these barcodes are used specifically by booksellers, libraries, universities, and wholesalers for book traceability. These 13-digit codes are created from the International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN) for each respective book tracked. Like UPCs, these are standardized for the unique identification of publishers.

PDF417: This stacked, linear 2D barcode can be found in many types of identification such as your driver’s license. It is the also the chosen standard by the USPS and Department of Homeland Security due to its advanced capabilities, such as encoding links to more than one data file. However, it can be expansive in size – 4 times larger than other 2D barcodes such as Datamatrix and QR Codes.

Data Matrix: This has become one the most common 2D barcodes.?It is a square in shape code and can encode large – as in huge – amounts of information in a very small space; it is very popular in electronics manufacturing and healthcare for that reason.?2D codes require sophisticated scanners, such as smartphones, to basically “take a picture” and translate the entire image at one time. When companies need more barcode storage capacity, 2D barcodes reign supreme over their 1D counterparts.

Now let’s look deeper at QR code and Payments:

ISO/IEC 18004 defines the requirements for the symbology known as QR Code. It specifies the QR Code symbology characteristics, data character encoding methods, symbol formats, dimensional characteristics, error correction rules, reference decoding algorithm, production quality requirements, and user-selectable application parameters.

QR Codes support ~4K of data, which is more than enough to support a payment instruction, such as:

-???????Transaction identifiers

-???????Routing and Account numbers

-???????Payment token

-???????Payment alias

-???????Closed loop identifier (eg: EBC QR Code guidelines)

Content of QR Code can be static or dynamic.

Static QR code once created, cannot be edited. A new QR code is required if a need arise to edit.

On the other hand, a dynamic QR Code never stores the target data directly. It stores a short URL that redirects the end-users to the target data.

Hence, a dynamic QR Code can be edited anytime you want. No need to create a new QR Code each time you want to change the encoded content.

Payment Use cases:

·?Send and Request payment from a friend

·?Send and Request payment for goods or services

·?Donations

·?Invoicing for a bill payment

·?Payments terms and conditions

·?Remittance Info

The rise of QR codes in payments was enabled by the widespread adoption of digital wallets. Uptake has been high in China, and their relatively inexpensive form factor and ease of use has helped make QR codes popular in other parts of the world.

Today, prominent QR code merchant payments deployments are evident around the globe.

PUSH vs PULL payments

QR code payments varies based on who presents the QR code:

Pull mode (Customer presented):

In this case, the consumer opens the relevant payment app in his smart phone and presents the QR code to the merchant, who uses a reader to scan the consumer’s QR code and “pull” the payment from the consumer’s payment account. One of the best examples of pull QR code payments is Starbucks, where consumers open their Starbucks app, and the barista scans the consumer’s QR code to initiate payments from the Starbucks prepaid card.

Push mode (Merchant presented):

Here, the merchant is the one who provides a QR code on the payment terminal or on a receipt. ?The consumer then uses their smartphone camera or a specific app to scan the QR code, enter payment details, and finish the payment process to “push” the payment to the merchant.

Push mode is commonly used for bill payment and one good example is SMEs displaying their PayPal QR Code at the register which customer can scan using his PayPal app and pay the merchant in a contactless fashion.

Conclusion:

The application for QR codes is virtually unlimited but sooner or later our craving for more data in a tiny space takes the charm away from the prevailing system. May be a hologram or a 3D code could solve the problem. Let’s see!

References:

https://blog.beaconstac.com/2020/03/augmented-reality-qr-codes
https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-merchant-presented-qr/documentation/
https://laptrinhx.com/news/qr-code-merchant-payments-a-growth-opportunity-for-mobile-money-providers-bbvBJ4O/
https://www.dbk.com/resources/barcode-scanner-history.html
https://www.nippon.com/en/news/fnn20191214001/the-little-known-story-of-the-birth-of-the-qr-code.html
https://barcode-labels.com/getting-started/barcodes/types/
https://www.iso.org/standard/62021.html
https://opengovasia.com/qr-programme-accelerated-to-boost-digital-payments-in-the-philippines//