Today, merchants expect their POS to do much more than finish a sale, they want it to boost efficiency, productivity and profit.
They want payment tools that help them manage their businesses better by automatically connecting and sharing data with inventory, accounting, CRM, ERP and other business systems without manual intervention. They also want to introduce new services and payment methods without replacing their entire technology stack.
With next generation Android POS devices they can do all this and more.
Hardware, apps and connectivity combined
Latest research shows that Android OS is now powering over 68% of newly deployed smart POS devices across retail, hospitality, and service sectors. And there’s a good reason why.
Next generation Android POS devices are not only robust, portable and packed with accessibility features and interactive functionality they also provide a familiar and flexible environment for developers and software providers to build and deploy applications.
Combined with strong security, cloud-based management and support for a growing range of business applications, Android POS is helping turn the checkout from a standalone payment point into a connected part of the wider business.
Major retailers are now using Android POS to unify inventory, payments, and cloud data. As a result, the global Android POS market, is growing at a CAGR of 30.5% and is expected to reach USD 164.33 billion by 2035.
Software-defined POS brings more choice and opportunity
Consumer payment habits continue to evolve. Cards remain central to retail, but customers increasingly expect digital wallets, local payment methods, QR payments, account-to-account payments and other emerging options.
A software-driven Android POS environment can make it easier to introduce additional payment capabilities and services e.g. loyalty programmes, promotions, digital receipts, customer identification, financing or other value-added services, without treating every change as a hardware replacement project.
Armed with integrated apps, Android POS devices can be easily customised for a wide variety of applications. They can connect to inventory to enable just-in-time stocking in retail environments, to concierge services and check in processes in hotels, at table ordering in restaurants or to manage traffic and stocking in unattended environments such as vending, ticketing, laundromats and self-service kiosks.
No compromise on reliability or security
Android POS may look and feel like consumer smart devices, but they’re built to withstand constant high-volume use in the most demanding environments and in high-risk applications.
They’re also exceptionally secure, designed so that business applications and sensitive payment functions can operate within carefully controlled and encrypted environments. Using tokenisation, payment credentials and transaction data remain protected while applications provide the flexibility businesses increasingly expect.
Castles Technology’s latest-generation portable Android devices like the S1E4 PRO and S1F4 PRO for instance support PCI PTS v7. This is the industry’s most advanced security standard for payment terminals, requiring maximum defence against both physical and logical threats.
Managing POS estates at scale from the cloud
Constant mandate updates and security patches and regulatory requirements mean that POS devices need to be configured, monitored, updated and maintained throughout their lifecycle.
Android POS devices can be connected into a centralised cloud management platform, enabling what would otherwise be a major operational exercise into a more manageable process. Software and apps can be deployed and updated “over the air” reducing the need for physical intervention and helping payment providers operate large POS estates much more efficiently.
Platforms such as Castles Technology’s CasHUB makes this easy by providing centralised management of connected payment devices, including remote monitoring, application management and diagnostics.
Building new partner-based ecosystems
The shift towards software-defined POS is also reshaping relationships across the payments ecosystem. Acquirers, payment service providers, ISVs and device manufacturers are increasingly working together to create solutions tailored to specific industries and markets.
Open platforms make it easier to bring payment capabilities, business applications and services together, without every partner having to build the entire technology stack themselves.
This collaborative model can help payment providers move beyond payment acceptance and offer merchants more complete solutions, while giving technology providers and integrators new opportunities to bring software and services into the payment environment.
Android is here to stay
The future of POS is not about payments in isolation. At Castles Technology, we believe it’s about creating platforms and services that can adapt to different applications, connect with the wider business and remain secure and manageable at scale.
That is where Android has an increasingly important role to play. Its combination of a mature application environment, broad developer ecosystem and purpose-built payment security gives businesses and their technology partners a platform that can evolve with changing needs.
For merchants, that could mean a more capable and integrated point of sale. For the wider payments industry, it points to a future where software, services and payments work together more closely, with the terminal becoming central to overall business performance and efficiency as well as sales.
Find out more about Castles Technology Android solutions here: https://www.castlestech.com/
And meet us at NRF EUROPE, Paris Sept 15-16-17.
