There are tools that make our lives so much easier that we don't even realise how much we would miss them if we didn't have access to them. One of the great examples of this is the automatic payment terminal (TPA), a simple but extraordinary mechanism that makes an unrivalled contribution to offering customers a fast, secure and convenient shopping experience.
This has been particularly visible over the past year. In the midst of the pandemic crisis, the government's instructions were clear to encourage consumers to pay for purchases in person without using cash, and to opt for contactless payments instead.
For this to happen, however, it became necessary for economic agents to provide their customers with terminals with contactless technology which ended up resulting in an extraordinary increase in the contactless payments which, according to latest REDUNIQ Insights reportBy the end of the first quarter of 2021, they already accounted for around 42% of total national retail transactions.
But what is an automatic payment terminal and how does it work? That's what we'll try to answer in the following lines.
Automatic Payment Terminal: what is it and how does it work?
From its birth in the 1950s in the United States of America, where a sheet of chemical paper was the only possible TPA, to the new terminal solutions with the famous contactless technology integrated, which, as we have seen, has helped and helps Portuguese businesses so much during the pandemic crisis, the evolution in payment terminals has been tremendous, but something has remained the same: the facilitation of commercial transactions.
What is an Automatic Payment Terminal?
In practice, an automatic payment terminal is a device that accepts Portuguese and foreign bank cards for electronic payments, collecting the elements of those cards for authorisation of the operation and collecting transaction elements for processing.
In addition to collecting and authorising the transaction, the terminal also makes it possible to authenticate the customer by entering a secret code or requesting the holder's signature, and to print out vouchers.
How does the Automatic Payment Terminal work?
The way it works, as businesses and customers have seen at one time or another, is extremely simple.
When paying for a product or service, the customer uses their card and performs the authentication operation in the TPA thus placing an order for the product or service you wish to purchase.
After this first step, all the following steps take place at lightning speed:
- the information is transmitted by the acquirer (customer) to the card issuer, requesting authorisation to complete the transaction;
- After authorisation, the buyer pays the trader and "charges" him the service fee;
- the card issuer charges the cardholder for the transaction.
It may sound complicated, but it's not. As we've mentioned, the whole operation takes just a few seconds, and it's even quicker if it's a Contactless TPAThis is because on these devices, the customer only has to bring their contactless card or smartphone close to the terminal for the transaction to be completed successfully.
Advantages of the Automatic Payment Terminal
We've already touched on some of the advantages of a TPA solutionbut there are many more. To wit:
- easy payments for customers (no need to enter personal code in payments up to €50) and for companies (payments are transferred electronically to the company account);
- more efficient receipt, avoiding cheques with false signatures or without funds;
- smooth transactions with account credit on the next working day;
- greater security, with less cash on hand;
- more simplicity, with fewer bank deposits made and change in hand;
- not only do they convey an image of modernity and innovation, but they also meet new consumer and payment habits.
Automatic Payment Terminal - REDUNIQ Solutions
- REDUNIQ Easy
O REDUNIQ Easyis a Free APR with no fees or commissions and which allows businesses not only to accept credit and debit card payments from the Visa, Mastercard, Visa Electron, VPay, Mastercard and Maestro brands, but also to benefit from fixed monthly fees and the solution DCC - Currency Conversion which offers foreign customers to pay in their home currency.
Developed with businesses in mind that have never accepted card payments or that accept only a few transactions a month, the REDUNIQ Easy is also a valuable aid to business management as it provides free access to REDUNIQ Merchant Areawhere economic agents can consult their transactions, financial documents and other information.
- REDUNIQ Smart (Contactless TPA)
Based on NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, this Android payment terminal allows the contactless to carry out transactions without inserting the card into the terminal, simply by bringing the card close to the respective reader.
O REDUNIQ SmartIn addition to allowing payments by card or smartphone, with contactless, chip, MB Way or Apple Pay, this Android terminal gives economic agents the chance to develop management apps tailored to your business and your customers' needs in-house. TPA giving its entire corporate structure unrivalled mobility and flexibility.
