Types of Point Of Sale (POS)Terminals
Point Of Sales terminals (POS Terminals) have played a key role in promoting payment card based transactions in India thereby catalysing migration to digital channel payments and digital banking. Today, all banks in India promote transaction through Point Of Sale terminals and the terminals have become ubiquitous. There are different types of Point Of Sales terminals.
Acquirer owned Point Of Sale terminals
In this kind of arrangement an acquirer, who is a POS vendor or bank which acts as the processor of transactions, owns the Point Of Sale terminals and rent out the terminal for a specified period for mutually agreed rent as specified in the agreement. Acquirer provides support and system upgradations. Majority of merchants have this kind of arrangements. When the volume of transactions is high, acquirer may provide rent free Point Of Sale terminals.
Retailer owned Point Of Sale terminals
In this method, retailer himself owns the terminal. This method is adopted when the retailer needs large number of terminals and can be sourced directly from device supplier itself at reduced cost. In such cases, the retailer maintains the terminals and seeks the assistance of supplier for periodical services.
Integrated Point Of Sale terminals (IPOS)
IPOS is a special kind of POS terminals where the terminal is linked to other devices so as to reduce the work load of the person handling the terminal. In this case, the computer system may be linked to the POS terminal so that the total of billed items is fetched directly. In some other models, a bar code reader scans the invoice for the total amount of purchase which is then accounted at the terminal through card transaction. Acquirers do no normally supply such terminals, however, extends support for integration of merchant’s systems with the Point Of Sale terminals.
Polled Point Of Sale terminals (Predominantly Off-line Terminal-POT)
Polled POS terminals store the details of transactions and transmit the details to the acquirer at night/ when connectivity is available. These terminals are also called Predominantly Off-line Terminal (POT). This type of POS is used for offline field operations or Financial Inclusion transactions and subsequent batch upload to the back end by taking to a place where telephone/ mobile connectivity is available.
Portable Point Of Sale terminals linked to base station
This kind of terminals consists of a base station and many portable POS terminals. Mobile terminals / portable terminals can be used within a specified radius of the base station and are not wired to the base station. Base station is connected to telephone line. These terminals are mainly used in hospitality industry including restaurants.
PSTN & GRPS Point Of Sale terminals
POS terminals are normally connected to telephone lines (PSTN) and this limits the mobility. A PSTN POS terminal interacts to the Data Centre through telephone line while GPRS make use of SIM cards/ mobile data communication methods for connecting to Data Centre. In a GPRS POS terminal mobility issue is addressed by using wireless data communication to connect to data base. GRPS POS accepts card transaction even when away from shop. This type of card is widely used in stalls at local shows/ trade fares/ exhibitions where land line is not available.
Mobile phone based Point Of Sale terminals (m-POS)
Mobile POS uses a mobile device and a card reader to replace traditional merchant POS terminal. Mobile POS are widely used for electronic payment, inventory management and queue busting. Mobile POS based on mobile phone is called m-POS. M-POS supports different payment channels and devices, including card traditional cards/ EMV chip card/ NFC/ mobile phone based virtual cards.
Read more about M-POS here – M-POS (Mobile Point of Sale) & Digital Banking
