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Payments, a retrospectiv
Payments, a retrospective and gas stations have only recently
e
begun to offer email and digital
receipt alternatives to customers.
As a payment professional, I
ry
The ve
The very point of sale watched the paperless procession
point of sale
from a ringside seat, amazed at how
quickly innovative solutions were
becoming obsolete. It occurred to
me that most payment technology
had the equivalent lifespan of a
Paper's remarkable comeback daily newspaper, which inspired,
"Dial is yesterday's paper," my op-
ed published July 28, 2008, in Issue
08:07:02 of The Green Sheet.
By Dale S. Laszig
"Twenty years ago, we had a large
ays away from The Green Sheet's 40th anniversary, I'm reminded of population of merchants who
the payments industry's push to go paperless around 20 years ago. depended on paper for their bankcard
Merchant acquirers were digitizing their offices in earnest, scan-
D ning paper files and rolling metal file cabinets on wooden dollies to transactions," I wrote. "Today we
have an equally large population of
nearby loading docks where they were hauled away. It was the end of paper merchants who are using outmoded
as we knew it. dial technology."
Payment professionals followed suit, ending the practice of printing out emails Yesterday's paper
and banishing their pitch books to the dustbins of history. By contrast, it took
years for merchants to end their dependence on paper receipts. Some stores Comparing dial modems to paper
receipts, the article identified a huge
opportunity to upgrade dial terminal
estates, noting that a four-second
transaction would seem like warp
speed to any merchant accustomed
to 45-second dial transactions.
Advanced communications are
revolutionizing our space, I added,
PAYMENT FORM GENERATOR providing faster, smarter, more
efficient transactions.
As more merchants and service
EASY TO USE: providers deployed cellular, Internet
protocol (IP)-enabled, Wireless IP-
We Host Page enabled (Wi-Fi), and contactless
protocols, connected POS became
Pay Link more affordable and easier to use,
I noted. And today, 15 years later,
traditional credit card terminals are
Embed Code still around but share an increasingly
crowded market with key fobs,
Inventory smartphones, systems, computers,
laptop
embedded
integrated
Level Ill commerce and the Internet of Things.
"We've come a long way in the last
ACH
ACH two decades," I wrote. "Once limited
to dial modems, we now provide an
array of secure high-speed protocols
C A L L F O R T R A I N I N G to merchants. These solutions are
8 0 0 - 2 9 6 - 4 8 1 0 more efficient than dial, and they
offer substantial savings and return
on investment."

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