Contactless payments are revolutionizing the way businesses interact with customers. Wherever you shop these days — large retailer, grocery store, farmers market, baseball stadium, food truck — chances are, you’re accustomed to paying via contactless payments. Consumers now have contactless credit and debit cards with an embedded near-field communication (NFC) chip, allowing them to communicate with contactless-enabled payment terminals. To complete a transaction, the consumer simply places their card near the terminal.
Consider these broader digital payment trends at play:
- The payment ecosystem continues to shift
- Merchants are quickly responding to consumer needs impacted by the pandemic
- Mobile point-of-sale devices are already ubiquitous
- CPoC-based solutions have gained momentum in the past 12 months
What is CPoC?
CPoC is a PCI SSC standard, short for contactless payments on COTS; COTS is a commercial off-the-shelf device such as a smartphone. The contactless payments are conducted with NFC chips embedded in most modern COTS devices. CPoC eliminates the need for card reading hardware, lowering the cost to entry for merchants of all sizes. It also provides a high level of security.
The way it works is payment data is encrypted and sent to back-end systems for attestation and monitoring — after which it is securely processed — all with no manual PIN entry required. Customers can pay quickly and without hassle. Large merchants gain agility and scalability, while smaller merchants are able to rapidly meet customer demand.
Read more about the evolution of contactless payments and what’s ahead in payments in the latest article in The Green Sheet, authored by David Close, Futurex’s chief solutions architect.