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Insights and Expertise

As an industry, we need to integrate and support self-
serve devices and their unique form factors. There are a
couple of ways to accomplish this.

The shortest distance between two points
The first is direct certification where we integrate a
single device into a solution and certify it to both an
authorization platform and card brands. In addition, the
solution needs to be certified for the vertical. If you want to
support restaurant tipping, retail, ecommerce, petroleum
and lodging, separate certifications are needed for each
vertical.

Doing so eliminates third-party fees, but is very costly.
This solution is ideal for an ultra large platform with
its own authorization center. In this context, the kiosk
Self-serve kiosks accepting device will only be enabled on that specific
platform, so you need a very large sales force and target
By Ken Musante market to support the efforts.
Napa Payments and Consulting Clover’s Kiosk is an ideal example of a directly certified
device with a custom form factor.
elf-serve kiosks are booming. From banking to The short cut
healthcare to restaurants, employers are seek-
ing ways to increase throughput while increas- Another way to go is to leverage the certification of an
S ing customer satisfaction and lessening staffing existing gateway. The upside is if you integrate into a
costs. Kiosks are contactless and can increase order accu- device that is already certified to a gateway, you may
racy. Sure, you sacrifice upsell opportunities, but kiosks leverage all the existing certifications.
are not meant for all use cases. Fine dining would be a
poor use case—.at this time. This opens up authorization centers and verticals
the gateway has already certified. Moreover, the
Everybody has an opinion…. recertifications are the responsibility of the gateway. Sure,
A few weeks back, I posted the following on LinkedIn you will pay for it in an authorization fee, but you can pay
(https://bit.ly/3Txk1zu): for a gobs and gobs of authorizations before you recoup
your sunk costs for direct certification.
"California increased its minimum wage for fast food
workers to $20 on April 1st. It was a big jump and thought Some devices even extend the certification of that device
to increase wages to a group of folk living at or below to a family of devices further increasing your options once
poverty levels. integrated. The upside in functionality and versatility
is enormous and, in most use cases, will outweigh
"Yesterday I visited a McDonalds in Napa CA. Staff behind the marginal cost decrease associated with a direct
the counter no longer take orders. Customers are directed certification.
to self-serve kiosks. Considerations

"The kiosks only accept electronic payments. The Obviously, when considering a self-serve kiosk, you need
unintended consequence of the law directly benefited the to think through the use cases and happy and unhappy
payments industry.....interesting." customer journey. Form factor is critical, and you will often
need to source both the payment-accepting device and the
I received more response to this post than any prior post kiosk hardware separately to optimize for durability and
by a large margin. Some folks commented on the political cost. Reporting and remote health monitoring is also key
aspect and unintended consequences. I got a big laugh to a successful kiosk strategy.
from Jeff Rochford, who said, "You lost me at a McDonald's
in Napa." Although kiosks are meant to reduce labor, there need
to be alarm mechanisms for communication and power
Regardless of your political position, it's clear that the issues. Chip failure needs continuous monitoring, and
push to self-serve kiosks will increase card usage, and kiosks won't self-sanitize.
increasing labor costs and advancing technologies will
continue to push kiosks at the point of sale.

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