06 Jun '15 The Real Problem We Are Solving!
If there is one bad use of resources never talked about, it is the wasteful money spent on enabling a digital payments by duplication, redundant and legacy hardware investment. Did you know this photo capturing 3 EDC terminals is +-$1,200 – one thousand two hundred US dollars – of investment in dumb terminals??
These devices have limited memory, terrible displays, limited capabilites and old-school dial-up capabilities. There is zero innovation. No flexibility. No data or reports or transaction history.
Most importantly, these devices do only payments, seriously! $400 per terminal for just sending a payment message? How about cash-out, data capture of transaction metadata, a portal for all transactions…?
Singapore is no different with this triple spend for each bank to offer their limited functionality terminal.
Lets then take note of the future of payments: merchants just want to be paid, they dont want 4 terminals, they want a single consolidated transaction history, they will have to prepare for QR payments (wallets and similar innovation), and they want less hassle. I mean, who wants to deal with hardware anyway?! Right.
This poor clerk performing a paper reconcilliation. Observe the pocket calculation! This is 2015, not 1995!