You have traditionally earned customer loyalty by offering the right product at the right price. Today, customers are factoring in additional considerations, such as convenience and service, without sacrificing the speed and security of a payment transaction. Now is the time to explore new technology that supports consumer payment preferences while complying with evolving industry guidelines around payment security.
The Next Generation of Payment Acceptance — Contactless
Contactless payments enable customers to “wave” their chip-embedded card or other payment device, such as a mobile phone, in close proximity to a reader at the point-of-sale (POS) to pay for a purchase. The end result of a contactless transaction is the same as a traditional card swipe, but may provide the added benefits of improved transaction speed and enhanced security. Offering a contactless reader at the POS enhances the customers’ payment flexibility and provides your business with a platform to comply with industry security mandates.
Merchant Benefits
- Operational Efficiency – Contactless processing may be faster than a conventional magnetic stripe card transaction due to improved first time reliability.[1] This typically results in shorter queues and enhanced customer satisfaction.
- Competitive Differentiation – Consumers with contactless payment devices use them often and exhibit greater loyalty to merchants that accept them.[1] Merchants that accept contactless payments are well positioned to benefit from the projected growth in mobile phone–based payments.
- Industry Compliance – Many contactless readers fully support the Visa® migration to Chip Card, or EMV® technology, as well as associated compliance programs.
Consumer Benefits
- Convenience and Ease of Use – “Swipe and sign” is being joined by a device or card “wave” in close proximity to the reader.
- Safety and Security – Contactless chip technology leverages encryption and dynamic authentication, protecting sensitive cardholder information during the transaction. Additionally, the card or device never leaves the customer’s hand.
- Flexibility with Alternate Form Factors – Besides chip-embedded cards, contactless technology is becoming increasingly available in other forms such as mini-cards, stickers, key fobs and “mobile wallets” that reside on a smart phone.
Features
- Supports a wide range of credit, debit and gift card contactless payments
- All-in-one devices have a small footprint at POS with integrated PIN Pad/reader solution
- Attaches to most newer generation POS terminals
- Many models can be mounted on a drive-through window
- Utilizes Near Field Communication (NFC) technology
- Enhanced chip security through dynamic authentication
- Chip Card-capable devices enable enrollment in Visa’s Technology Innovation Program (TIP)
- Eliminates the need to capture a signature on purchases under $25 in conjunction with the Visa Small Ticket program (for qualifying merchants)
Upgrading Your Point-of-Sale Equipment
Enabling your customers to pay using a mobile device or Chip Card is easy. Simply call PNC Merchant Services® customer service at 800-742-5030 and tell us that you would like to upgrade your POS equipment to new equipment that is capable of accepting mobile payments at the point of sale. We will answer your questions and explain how the upgrade process works.
After you complete the equipment upgrade, your business will realize a number of benefits beyond being able to accept mobile payments. For example, the new equipment will utilize a security technique called tokenization that offers data security not offered traditional card swiping. Tokens are comprised of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers and special characters that have no relationship to customers’ actual payment information — tokens only point to the payment data. Therefore, token usage protects against identity theft.
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