POS in the hands of the customer
The new solution, dubbed Rail, is a payment platform that enables restaurants to put the point of sale system in the hands of the customer (view press release). The solution looks like a typical bill presentation wallet that would be presented to a customer at the end of a meal but it has a touch screen interface that allows the customer to carry out functions such as splitting the bill, auto-calculating tips and emailing receipts as opposed to printing them out. The solution integrates and securely communicates with existing POS systems and Viableware’s datacentre. The partnership claims the solution offers new benefits such as improved waiting efficiency, advertising revenue opportunities and customer loyalty application.
Ron Dicklin, project manager at Synapse explains that “developing a wireless, battery powered device that works with a customized enterprise solution had its share of unique design challenges requiring innovative technological solutions… We had to understand not only how the Rail interacted with back-end point-of-sale servers and data centres, but also how the wait staff and customers used the device so security and power requirements were all properly addressed.”
The solution is currently in beta testing in restaurants in the Seattle area.
Whitepapers
Related reading
Central banks best suited to issue digital currencies
By Aaran Fronda A recent report by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) said that central banks rather than private ... read more
Instant payments: innovations inbound for corporates
In 2020, instant payments look set to continue their current trajectory to become the biggest trend in payments. While these schemes already offer numerous benefits to corporates, leveraging innovations such as APIs and request to pay will go some way to unlocking their full potential, argues Michael Knetsch
Obstacles exist for banks to meet ECB’s instant payments goal
The cost of joining instant payment platforms will be one of many hurdles banks and payment services providers must overcome to meet ... read more
Banks must be aware of “biases” in data used to train ML models
Financial institutions need to be conscious of biases in the historical data that is being used to train machine learning (ML) models, ... read more
