ard payment acceptance in the hospitality industry is migrating from the stationary countertop station to mobile solutions that bring payment to the point of service: at the table, at the driver's window during curbside pick-up and in delivery to the customer's home or office. This will open up new opportunities for ISOs and merchant level salespeople (MLSs) to expand existing customer accounts and sign on new clients.

In a typical restaurant setting, a cash register or stand-alone POS terminal sits in a fixed location. Every credit and debit card transaction requires multiple steps to complete, with customers first waiting to receive a check, handing over a card, waiting for it to be taken to a counter or backroom, and finally being handed a receipt to sign.

Relatively few restaurants are equipped with POS systems that effectively service the increasingly popular curbside takeout service. As far as home and office delivery goes, most who accept card payments incur costly card-not-present interchange fees that sap profits.

Wireless POS technology upends traditional models and makes it possible to speed up service, bring the most effective payment to all points of service and maximize server productivity and customer satisfaction.

Today's payment systems need to be portable so waiters can bring the payment transaction to the table or car-side, both to speed up service and accommodate increasing demand for PIN debit payment. These systems must be as easy for servers and consumers to use as an ATM device, and they need to be rugged to ensure durability.

When there's no apparent business case for investing in a new market, solution providers try to meet early demand by retrofitting existing products. Thus, the first wireless POS terminals were adapted from existing fixed-terminal designs and retrofitted with wireless modems and batteries.

Such systems are not well suited for restaurant use: To wait on tables, servers need to keep their hands free and move nimbly without heavy, bulky equipment slowing them down. Also, the software interfaces on these devices are server-focused and not attuned to the consumer.

That is changing as the industry recognizes that there is a business case for new types of devices. VeriFone, for example, embarked on a completely new design effort to create a portable payment solution driven by emerging market needs.

Dubbed "Purpose Inspired Design," this effort started with vigorous investigation into usage scenarios to determine what the restaurant market needs to make portable payment work.

In reviewing the research, it became clear that a payment system designed for hospitality environments would have to meet the certain requirements. It must be:

Environmentally robust: In the hectic environment of table food service, handheld devices will be dropped, so they need to withstand the impact and recover gracefully. They also need to be resistant to moisture from food and beverage spills.

Ergonomic: The device must be very small, extremely light, comfortable to hold and use, and easily placed into a holster and charging base so that servers have their hands free to wait on tables.

Consumer friendly: In the past, payment systems were always merchant-activated. That's no longer the case. Consumers are increasingly paying with PIN debit cards and gift cards, and using payment systems with which they swipe their own cards, enter PINs and sign on electronic displays.

Secure and private: Consumers are increasingly wary about possible account theft, or "card skimming," when handing over plastic to a stranger, particularly in a restaurant environment where the card often leaves their sight for several minutes.

Workflow efficient: A pay-at-the-table payment system needs to be easily located for sharing and easy to carry and present. It must reliably slip into a charging base without attaching charging cables and have an integrated printer to minimize the number of steps required to complete payment transactions.

Adaptable to all points of service: Wi-Fi is a great wireless technology that is amazingly cost-effective to use in table service environments. But it is a local area network technology that is limited to short distances. It is not useful in delivery service, or even in some drive-up takeaway situations.

A system that can be used in all points of service must be capable of adapting to both local area and wide area wireless service.

This research prompted creation of a new development process we termed MAXui, which maximizes the user interface over the given surface of the product, while hiding areas which do not enhance the frequent experience of the device.

The MAXui effort focused not only on making a table server's job more efficient, but also on being intuitively useful to consumers who can readily swipe or insert their own cards, enter PINs and even add tip amounts to complete transactions. The result was that we created a smaller and lighter handheld payment device, whose size is more like a PDA than a POS terminal.

It wasn't just the hardware that had to change. Current restaurant payment solutions are designed with a user interface targeted for a merchant-facing audience. The prompting sequence is more suitable for someone who uses the payment terminal routinely, not necessarily the casual customer. Consumers have less experience with such devices, and a cumbersome interface would only serve to confuse them, resulting in a poor dining experience.

Building on years of experience with customer-activated payment solutions, VeriFone designed a restaurant payment application that uses only the most necessary menu items to prompt the payment and to allow plain language prompts. The key design attributes were for an application with a continuous flow designed to accomplish finalization of the payment transaction easily, simply and quickly.

Many restaurants will be using Wi-Fi networks to operate multiple types of electronic devices, such as hand-held order-entry systems. This requires an additional layer of security to ensure that no unauthorized device can access the network to intercept payment data from POS devices.

Bringing the "pay anywhere" philosophy to restaurants requires hardware and software that is specifically designed to do the job. It will require ISOs and MLSs to learn new skills in packaging hardware, software and communications. But the payoff will be an expanding market with new opportunities in hospitality.

David Talach is VeriFone's Global Product Manager of Wireless & Portables. He plays a key role in analyzing wireless industry trends and defining, designing and delivering wireless products to meet merchants' current and emerging requirements. E-mail him at david_talach@verifone.com .