5 reasons why banks and telecommunications companies should invest in mPOS terminals

mPOS terminals are rapidly gaining popularity. Small and large businesses around the world have already appreciated the charm of these systems connecting sellers and buyers through mobile devices running iOS and Android. And this is not just a tribute to fashion. Making purchases using mPOS terminals is really more convenient and pleasant for the buyer than buying in the traditional way. In addition, with such systems it becomes much easier to keep track of transactions and their subsequent analysis, including consumer demand trends and, of course, information about the geographical location. Anyone who has tried this with their own hands will agree with the statements above.
Your attention translation of the article, in which David Ingram is trying to figure out why banks and telecommunications companies need mPOS terminals.

1. Buy or develop?

When the analytical departments at enterprises are faced with the problem of choosing: to buy something or to develop it themselves, very often they are inclined to the second option. However, many technical directors in various fields of business often witness cases where the choice of the first of two alternatives, namely, purchasing, in the end turns out to be advantageous in comparison with its own development.

The fact is that when you undertake the development of a solution on your own from beginning to end, you take responsibility not only for implementing the business logic of the application that benefits your company, but also for the underlying technologies that underlie all this. And this is an additional cost of time and capital that I would like to avoid, otherwise they will remain entirely with you throughout the entire product life cycle. When you buy a platform and build it in, you save yourself a huge amount of “dirty work” both at the deployment stage and during subsequent maintenance. As a result, you get a lower cost of ownership.

2. Faster brought to market - faster paid back.

Nowadays, the time to launch another product on the market in the face of fierce competition is measured not in months and years, but in weeks. Using a ready-made mPOS terminal saves you time and money that you would have to spend on creating a low-level foundation if you took up the independent development of a solution. This time saving gives you a significant head start when entering the market, while maintaining a fairly high level of service provided. Which, in turn, speeds up the return on investment in the system. If you tighten the moment of entering the market, you can lose the lion's share of customers, which will negatively affect payback. So, quick entry to the market means a higher return on investment, which is achieved due to the customer base, increased income, reduced costs and quality of service.

3. Do not reinvent the wheel.

In fact, the mPOS system is far from new, some providers have been using it for 3 years or more, and during this time they have gained a lot of experience. So you and your business will already know how to enter this market. However, every good steward knows that the devil is in the details. As a management representative, I am well aware of cases where single-line business requirements nullify many hours of work done, when the analysis and solution of the task is literally on the go. The main difficulty lies in the elaboration of each aspect of the solution being developed, including software and hardware (and their interaction), infrastructure, regulatory requirements, documentation and personnel management system. Ready-made high-quality mPOS terminal already has all of the above and provides a quick implementation of the solution and access to the market at any time of the company’s activities. Such a solution can vary from the simplest option, which can be deployed and prepared for work in a matter of weeks, to a product fully adapted and built into your back office or corporate system.

4. Effective use of scarce resources.

I do not think that I have ever worked in a business that has surplus resources for development. As a rule, decisions were made daily on where to direct this or that part of the scarce resources, and by allocating resources for one project, the company was no longer able to allocate a sufficient number of them to another. Using the mPOS terminal ensures that your scarce resources will be directed in the right direction, not to develop a low-level architecture, but to implement and adapt a system that fully meets your needs. I constantly find myself thinking that I am trying to compare this situation with a technological breakthrough in the field of building materials for both ordinary residential buildings and commercial real estate. Where builders used to do brickwork by hand,

5. Give preference to complex and elegant solutions.

A truly functional mPOS terminal should provide an elegant solution that combines all the most basic components in the same way as it is implemented in good APIs that allow you to easily integrate new functionality into an existing enterprise system. As mentioned above, mPOS is a complete solution. It allows hardware components, such as PED (PIN input device), which is often combined with MSR (magnetic stripe reader), as well as software of various levels of hardware, including PED firmware, mobile applications for various devices and platforms, application server programs as well as a regular web services stack, caching, application logic, business logic, a database and domain model, plus a physical hardware stack to ensure correct and stable operation. Besides, Of course, there are APIs and integrable components that allow you to interact with banking systems (these include: payment channels, acquirers, payment systems, etc.), and in many cases also with CRM and financial systems. In addition, control mechanisms and certificates are implemented that are used at various levels of the system, some of which are associated with hardware, others with software, and there are also related to business processes. Of course, you can also integrate solutions from various developers on your side, but this will slow down your entry into the market, increase risks and costs, and, just as importantly, this approach is fraught with unnecessary integration problems, which will ultimately negatively affect the quality service for end users. allowing to interact with banking systems (these include: channels for payments, acquirers, payment systems, etc.) and in many cases also with CRM and financial systems. In addition, control mechanisms and certificates are implemented that are used at various levels of the system, some of which are associated with hardware, others with software, and there are also related to business processes. Of course, you can also integrate solutions from various developers on your side, but this will slow down your entry into the market, increase risks and costs, and, just as importantly, this approach is fraught with unnecessary integration problems, which will ultimately negatively affect the quality service for end users. allowing to interact with banking systems (these include: channels for payments, acquirers, payment systems, etc.) and in many cases also with CRM and financial systems. In addition, control mechanisms and certificates are implemented that are used at various levels of the system, some of which are associated with hardware, others with software, and there are also related to business processes. Of course, you can also integrate solutions from various developers on your side, but this will slow down your entry into the market, increase risks and costs, and, just as importantly, this approach is fraught with unnecessary integration problems, which will ultimately negatively affect the quality service for end users. e.) and in many cases also with CRM and financial systems. In addition, control mechanisms and certificates are implemented that are used at various levels of the system, some of which are associated with hardware, others with software, and there are also related to business processes. Of course, you can also integrate solutions from various developers on your side, but this will slow down your entry into the market, increase risks and costs, and, just as importantly, this approach is fraught with unnecessary integration problems, which will ultimately negatively affect the quality service for end users. e.) and in many cases also with CRM and financial systems. In addition, control mechanisms and certificates are implemented that are used at various levels of the system, some of which are associated with hardware, others with software, and there are also related to business processes. Of course, you can also integrate solutions from various developers on your side, but this will slow down your entry into the market, increase risks and costs, and, just as importantly, this approach is fraught with unnecessary integration problems, which will ultimately negatively affect the quality service for end users. but there are also related to business processes. Of course, you can also integrate solutions from various developers on your side, but this will slow down your entry into the market, increase risks and costs, and, just as importantly, this approach is fraught with unnecessary integration problems, which will ultimately negatively affect the quality service for end users. but there are also related to business processes. Of course, you can also integrate solutions from various developers on your side, but this will slow down your entry into the market, increase risks and costs, and, importantly, this approach is fraught with unnecessary integration problems, which will ultimately negatively affect the quality service for end users.

The solution created from start to finish on its own is undoubtedly very difficult, and managers should once again think about the benefits of purchasing and further deploying an integrated mPOS terminal on which future solutions will be based. The advantages of this approach are many: from a quick launch to the market, faster payback and lower cost of operation and ownership, ending with a more efficient use of scarce resources, flexibility during deployment, a more elegant solution for end users and the ability to expand existing functionality in the future.