Former Google executive launches new payments terminal

With a plethora of payment methods including cards with magnetic strip, cards with chips, smartphones that use near field communication (NFC) and others that read QR codes, it had to happen - a payments machine that handled all forms of payment, CNET reported.

Osama Bedier, creator of Google Wallet one time engineering lead at PayPal announced a new payments terminal yesterday and his latest company, Poynt is all set to benefit from a huge, mandated infrastructure upgrade in the US.

By October 2015, all US merchants would need  to replace their payment machines with ones that took chip-and-pin, or EMV, embedded cards that offer greater security than the common magnetic strip found on today's credit and debit cards.

According to estimates around 16 million payment devices would need to be upgraded and Bedier was ready for it.

The majority of retail establishments lack the  smart, connected devices that our phones could  interact with, he said. He added, the imagination was there, the hope was there but it had not actually been seen.

There existed a lot of technology for in-store payments but was not yet widespread yet, like paying for items simply by walking out of a store or receiving loyalty points automatically when one made a purchase.

According to Bedier his machine, which would run on a variant of Google's Android operating system, could help make this happen.

Meanwhile, The Poynt terminal features a dual-screen design with a 7'' merchant-facing screen and a 4.3'' customer-facing screen, Forbes reported.

The dual-screen would make it easy for customers to use the payment terminal as it would not have to swivel to be used.

The Poynt Smart Terminal comes with a printer, barcode scanner, wireless connection, Ethernet port, USB extension, and 3G and 4G connectivity.

It also featured Beacon technology for setting up repeat customer rewards.

The Poynt Smart Terminal comes with an 8-hour battery life and since it is portable, it can be plugged into multiple docking stations. In terms of security, the Poynt Smart Terminal secures sensitive payment data using a range of security technologies.

Poynt is built with an Android-based tablet as also a docking station. The Poynt device includes support for magnetic stripe cards, EMV cards, near field communication (compatible with Apple Pay and Google Wallet), QR codes and Bluetooth.

''Consumers carry connected supercomputers in their pockets while in-store technology still centers around a glorified calculator,'' said Bedier in a statement.

''Solving for that disparity, we borrowed from the best in mobile technology to make the payment terminal smart and help small businesses rise to meet growing consumer expectations. With Poynt, merchants can also say, 'There's an app for that!'''