News - New app claims to render cash registers obsolete

[HEXUS]

Lots of talk of revolution from Square, but there’s still a long way to go.

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[Gordy]

I like the idea of square. I'd love to try it out in the UK, but it's not out here

[bobharvey]

I can't believe all the hoopla about a mag stripe reader. This has been going on for 2 years and they still don't offer chip-and-pin.

I've not used a swipe reader for half a decade.

[TheAnimus]

yes but your forgetting the whole of the US are still in the stonage. They use mag stripe.

[finlay666]

yes but your forgetting the whole of the US are still in the stonage. They use mag stripe.

They do have electronic signature pads in some bigger stores though, surely that is more secure

[Gordy]

I can't believe all the hoopla about a mag stripe reader. This has been going on for 2 years and they still don't offer chip-and-pin.

I've not used a swipe reader for half a decade.

I think they'd have to do a chip and pin version for europe. That's what I'm hoping for, particularly with cheques being phased out.

[Spud1]

This is nothing new, in fact when I was in the ePos business we wrote our own mobile terminal software where you could take payments/scan products..AND process chip and pin.

Trouble is, you can do it easily on a "real" PDA - we did on some Windows CE devices (also worked on windows mobile), but you need a separate chip and pin pad still, and due to the security regulations around them you need a hard wired connection (or did at the time) if you are doing all the processing on the PDA itself. Thats fine for a retail PDA as you have a serial port, so its simple..but for using it on an iPad..its just not possible with current regulations.

Instead you need a server to sit and look after the EFT payment side of things, which just sends an auth OK packet back to your iPad etc. if you are doing that though there is very little reason to go with a solution like this. Plus I can guarantee you that this sort of solution just isn't interesting to the vast majority of the market over here. You have to consider durability too (this is possibly the biggest issue) - trying to use an iPad as a mobile terminal? It WILL get dropped and then you are talking about another £400 to replace it. A bog standard retail standard PDA from china will cost you £350 (cost, retails for £1k) and can withstand a hell of a lot of punishment..even a prettier one from someone like symbol isn't that much more expensive. This durability issue is likely to be the biggest one..there is a big reason to 99.9% of all ePos equipment is made to be spill/drop/thump resistant!

The only plus point is the consumer app which presumably just has a directory of stores that are using this system..but that only works when you have enough people signed up to it

In the US it's a completely dififerent story I am sure..and it could take off there, as many of the implementation issues that exist over here just don't apply there. Nice idea but it's been done already, and I doubt it will take off the UK.