It’s the beginning of the month; you are at your local grocery store, stocking up for the next one month or so…. Without even blinking, you fish out your wallet, hand over your card, or just scan the QR code to make the payment though your e-wallet. Simple…isn’t it?
Now let’s rewind a few years or shall we say decades, back to the age of the quintessential ‘Red’ ledger book called the ‘Bahi Khata’! The Bahi Khata has been a witness to various modes of payments and transforming payments infrastructures across generations, in India and around the world in many other forms. The payment acceptance infrastructure has indeed come a long way, globally.
The first payment registration devices date as far back as 1879 when inventor James Ritty created a mechanism to record cash payments, the only mode of transaction then. Thereafter, electric-powered cash registers became the norm in the early twentieth century after NMC unveiled a prototype in 1918. The use of the electric engine simplified the contraption and made it more dependable.
Followed by the emergence of original form of cards, first ATM went into operation in 1967, and it was only a matter of time before card-accepting machines arrived. Credit cards went on to become the most coveted mode of payments, providing the society with the ‘plastic’ payment option. The first payment card, Diners Club, appeared in the United States in 1950, followed by American Express in 1958.
The main idea behind a card for payment? To give merchants a standardised way to settle transactions with their own and the customer’s bank, without the use of cash. The major factor in these transactions was ‘Trust’ – from the merchants towards the bank and banks towards the paying customers. That is when VISA and Mastercard revolutionized the system by not only building trust but by simplifying processes and inducting merchants into the new era of payments acceptance. Once the trust was instilled at the Merchant’s end and the sizeable benefits attached to this form were apparent – including faster and hassle-free payments, quicker processing, shorter queues at stores, satisfied customers and more importantly getting the paid amount from banks easily and in short time as less as one or two days.
As the merchants and customers evolved, respectively the cash register machinery also had to be updated accordingly. The first piece of hardware with a card acceptance capability was created by IBM in the form of a computer terminal remotely hooked up to a mainframe that took cards and crunched the numbers, the POS terminal as we know it.
In their early form, these card acceptance machines were so expensive and hard to operate that even the chain stores (let alone small retailers) hesitated at buying them, wary of taking on the risk associated with an interesting but rather doubtful breakthrough. But things were about to change…
Merchants world over have played a pivotal role in the evolution of payments and transactions. And many of the innovations in this arena have been made, keeping the ease of acceptance, merchant inclusion, and delivery of the methods to make the processes easier and businesses more efficient.
And now, it is hard to imagine all of this past with its challenges with an easy-peasy POS terminal that is so convenient that it fits into the palm of your hand and makes payments worth millions,’ POS’sible.
As with all technologies, POS systems became better, faster and more affordable — allowing smaller retailers to begin using them. Thankfully, the technological progress never really stopped.
The POS systems of today are so secured, inexpensive and intuitive that not using one carries costs. This is certainly true for most merchants, but it’s also becoming increasingly true for a growing number of non-retail businesses.
Yet the POS systems of today are much different from those of years ago. In fact, they continue to evolve, incorporating new technologies and features, considering the ever evolving merchant lifecycle & expanding and converging ecosystems, simplifying processes for businesses and consumers, while simultaneously making businesses seamless and more efficient.
The global POS terminals market accounted for USD 62.34 billion in 2018 and is expected to register a CAGR of 7.8% from 2019 to 2025, which means that POS market is no longer going to suffice as the part of the payment infrastructure rather it would have to pull out all stop and do more than is expected!
So what’s NEXT? Well, what if we told you that there’s more to this tiny machine than what meets the eye.
Meet UniPOS A5, Evolute’s new offering from its Fintech bouquet, a technology solution with multiple applications. Home grown design, loaded with technology features that make UniPOS A5 a single device catering across industries. Aptly named ‘Uni’POS, it is in fact a ‘Universe Within…for a Universe Beyond’.
Most suited for a cashless, growing economy, surging towards financial inclusion, UniPOS A5 is an Omni channel, easy to use, easily accessible multifunctional payment acceptance solution.
Advancing technology has had a greater impact on how transactions are made. Today consumers simply reach for their phones to pay for items and utilize store membership discounts and coupons, it’s no longer enough for POS systems to simply facilitate cash, credit, debit, or gift card purchases anymore.
POS systems nowadays are expected to do much more than simply complete transactions. This is the reason why Evolute’s UniPOS A5 is highly efficient and technically savvy plug-n-play POS solution capable of multilevel functions from billing & inventory management, sales force automation, parking, transit & ticketing to utility payments and collections, domestic & cross border remittance, and more.
A complete biometric coverage (fingerprint, iris, voice and face reader) and hassle-free processes makes it a great fit for Agency Banking, E-kyc and digital onboarding, National ID programs, Public distribution services, immigration and security, any scenario where biometric authentication plays a role.
Thus, making UniPOS A5 a complete and compact solution for needs ranging from Retail, BFSI, Transit, E-Governance, Agri-Tech, and more.
Know more about how UniPOS A5 can be a part of ‘Your Universe’ here.
* Images are for reference only
Sources:
https://medium.com/@viso/a-glance-at-the-history-of-pos-terminals-bcd809c48493
https://www.merchantproexpress.com/news/a-brief-history-of-pos-systems
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-point-of-sale-terminals-market
