Why Settle For Just EMV? Upgrade to a Smart Terminal in 2017
By now, we are all familiar with the noise surrounding EMV compliance, chip card terminals, liability shifts, etc. And yes, your business should absolutely be equipped to accept EMV chip cards come the New Year. If you're not able to accept EMV, you should make it a priority.
According to CreditCards.com, a whopping 70% of United States consumers are carrying chip cards. As a result, businesses who are not ready to accept those chip cards are vulnerable to chargeback disputes and fraud. For example, if you have a legacy payment terminal or POS system, and a customer pays with a chip card, and then later disputes the transaction, you will be held liable despite having a signed sales slip.
That doesn't sound very fair, does it? We don't make the rules, we just strive to provide solutions to eliminate unnecessary headaches for business owners.
The good news, most payment terminals and point of sale systems are now equipped to accept EMV, even with tip adjustments. There are always going to be a few stragglers out there like some of the legacy POS systems (MICROS, POSItouch, Aloha, etc). Nonetheless, many of us payment professionals can feel pretty confident about EMV for our customer bases going into 2017.
That being said, why settle for just EMV?
If you're going to make any investments in new equipment come 2017, you should seriously consider your options. Many ISO/Processors have free terminal placement programs, however, a small investment could provide a true ROI as opposed to a basic processing device.
Our advice, if you own a retail store, wine shop, butcher shop, food truck, quick service restaurant, etc... You should upgrade to a Smart Terminal in 2017.
So, what the heck is a Smart Terminal anyway? First, let's take a look at the traditional credit card terminals.
Traditional Credit Card Terminals:
Connectivity
- Dial and IP
Payment Options
- EMV, NFC, Apple Pay, & Google Wallet
Limited Reporting
- batch and summary reports
Immobile
- majority of terminals are not wireless
Printed Receipts
- thermal and ink paper only
Smart Terminals (still considered a credit card terminal and not a point of sale system):
Connectivity
- WiFi, 3G, and Bluetooth
Payment Options
- EMV, NFC, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Future Proof for tomorrows commerce
Cloud-Reporting
- Mobile apps allow business owners to track sales trends, customers demographics, and transactional data in real-time
Mobile
- Accept payments virtually anywhere due to multiple modern connectivity options
Email Receipts
- Capture customer emails to seamlessly build a database
- save money on paper and ink cost
As you can see, there's a lot more value in using a Smart Terminal if you are a numbers oriented operator or if you want to keep track of your sales remotely. The biggest difference between the above terminals, aside from more advanced technology alone, is one is cloud-based and the other has to be hard-wired via an ethernet cable (think landline phone versus smart phone).
Finally, cloud-solutions will continue to provide an ROI on your investment because they will continually get better overtime. Remember the last time you updated your smart phone, and suddenly, you had some useful new bells and whistles?
Now, the phone isn't the only "smart" device. As applications continue to launch, businesses can take advantage of seamless integrations to QuickBooks, employee scheduling, business intelligence, and much more.
