Payment system provider VeriFone is arming its merchants and retailers with new tools to handle changes in commerce. The company, well known for its point of sale terminals, is showing off an array of new products at the National Retail Federation’s Convention and Expo in New York this week, demonstrating how it can help merchants become more mobile, more responsive and dynamic.
VeriFone is showing off its new MX 900 series of point of sale hardware that is built to be more multi-media friendly, with one unit, the MX 925 sporting a 7-inch WVGA touch-screen. The hardware will support NFC contactless payments for Google Wallet and Isis and will also handle EMV smartcard transactions.
Retailers will be able to control these new hardware devices with the Verifone HQ management system, which will allow companies to push out coupons and discounts as well multimedia content to all the devices in one location from a single web-based dashboard.
Building off its purchase of Global Bay in November, VeriFone is extending its PayWare mobile payment acceptance tool to tablets with PayWare Mobile Enterprise for Tablets. The system, which will work initially with the iPad 2, will allow sales workers to take payments including NFC transactions through a PayWare dongle; conduct product and price checks; direct consumers to online channels; show off promotional material and enroll consumers in loyalty programs.
VeriFone will show how mobile wallets from Google and Isis, the carrier consortium, can work on its point of sale terminals. It’s also in talks with PayPal to support PayPal’s in-store payment system.
Erik Vlugt, VP at VeriFone Marketing, said the company sees that the way people interacting at the point of sale is evolving and its looking to help re-imagine what that experience will look like. He said VeriFone is set up to be a key player in the next evolution of commerce as it takes a neutral stance in the new mobile wallet wars, extending support to Google, Isis, PayPal and other third parties.
“That’s why these third parties are coming to us because they need Verifone to reach that marketshare,” Vlugt said. “We can be Switzerland and the merchants can decide what they want to accept.”
VeriFone is indeed in a good spot. Many of the next-generation payment systems will need to go through point of sale terminals and with 70 percent of the retail market in the U.S. VeriFone is poised to do a lot more business if its merchant customer step up and upgrade their hardware to handle these new mobile wallets. It previously provided a big lift to NFC when it said in March that all future terminals will include NFC technology.
But VeriFone also realizes that merchants don’t just need a new form of payment. They need better ways to engage with consumers, offer coupons and address the growing move toward online and mobile shopping. The best partners for merchants and retailers will help address all of these concerns, something VeriFone is increasingly looking to do.
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