Updated on November 22, 2021
Q: How do you think new digital payments technology can help small businesses meet the demands of today’s consumer?
The card brands Visa/MasterCard/American Express are very excited about the new chip cards because they expect to experience fewer losses and chargebacks, but they downplay the fact that merchants will have to upgrade their equipment and change their customer’s behavior at the point of sale. The addition of ApplePay, AndoidPay and Samsung Pay will slowly move transactions from plastic cards to phones, but the industry estimates are overblown as ApplePay has not lived up to initial expectations. Changing the consumer’s behavior at the point of sale will take longer than the card brands and phone providers expect because these are embedded in our daily life. In addition the rollout of capable equipment at the point of sale will be slow. So no one will be tossing their plastic cards soon as the infrastructure to support cell phone transactions is still not widely available.
In addition, these benefits only apply to Retail merchants, so businesses who manually enter transactions or process online there are no changes.
Positives:
- NFC transactions such as ApplePay, AndroidPay, Samsung Pay will speed up transactions at retail merchants.
- Reduction in fraud and chargebacks for retailers as it will be basically impossible to create counterfeit cards.
- End to end encryption of card transactions at the point of sale now being offered by some processors such as Leap Payments.
Negatives:
- Anticipated increased fraud for keyed and e-commerce transactions, as fraud moves from retail to online as it will be more difficult to commit fraud in person, so fraud activity will likely increase online as it moves to the easier channels.
- Costs of replacing equipment or adding chip card and NFC readers to POS systems.
- Increased transaction times, chip cards take longer to process than swiped cards.
Q: What new payment technologies is Leap Payments offering and how are you educating your merchants to help them understand the latest technology and its benefits to implement the best payment solutions for their business?
Leap Payments has offered the chip/tap enabled machines for over 2 years as we were one of the first companies to offer the new devices in anticipation of the new EMV cards. So we continue to offer the latest point of sale equipment and recently launched an iPad POS system that includes an EMV card reader with our partner Talech. This is the first retail and restaurant POS system to offer full EMV and NFC card support.
It’s a little known fact that today all credit card terminals transmit information to the processors without any protection, so if that transmission is hijacked, card information can be compromised. So to secure these transactions Leap Payments will be launching our SafeT suite of products, so all of our terminals will immediately encrypt card information so that the merchant will never transmit unprotected credit card information. This also reduces their PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance requirements, as they never have possession of the card information.
Leap Payments is here to make sure that our clients get paid, period. We want to make sure that our clients can focus on their business success and don’t have to worry about security breaches or chargebacks.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While many of the payment providers still charge tiered rate pricing, Leap Payments started their new interchange pricing model in 2010 by adding just a small markup over interchange rates in an effort to simplify the fee structure and be more transparent. Leap is the only company to our knowledge that offers “Lifetime Rate Lock” for both small and large merchants alike and their customers don’t pay fees for data compliance, statements or junk fees. Best of Category Reviews is pleased to give this merchant account provider high marks and we think you will too once you experience their customers first attitude. To learn more about Leap Payments click here for the review or call and apply online.
