Today, if a merchant isn’t tuned into the need for an integrated point of sale solution that supports sales across any channel and any method of payment, they’re at risk of missing the real point of sales. This month’s Payments as a Service Tracker™ profiles 18 global players who are helping merchants navigate this new turf, along with an interview with Henry Helgeson, Cayan’s CEO and Co-founder, about the trend lines that are moving merchants to take those important first steps.
Say goodbye to point of sale solutions focused entirely on card acceptance. And hello to integrated solutions that help merchants focus on the real point of sales: meeting consumers wherever and whenever they want to do business. That’s not easy if their starting point is a brick-and-mortar environment with legacy systems, multiple processing relationships, the need to move to EMV, and the desire to enable a variety of new tender types (like rewards) and payments methods (like mobile wallets).
While integrating things like rewards programs, QR codes, gift cards and loyalty services into online transactions has been relatively seamless, many merchants struggle to seamlessly incorporate these elements to the in-store purchase experience. The lack of synergy between broader solutions and standard payments can detract significantly from the customer experience, and many providers are developing technologies intended to fuse these puzzle pieces together.
The March edition of the PYMNTS.com Payments as a Service Tracker™ features the latest news related to the players hard at work moving and defining the category. The Tracker contains the profiles of 18 players in the space, including 4 new providers.
Looking past traditional POS systems and into the future
This month’s cover story details our conversation with Henry Helgeson, the founder and CEO of Cayan, and the trend lines that are pushing merchants into a world where the point of sale is all about the point of sales today: an integrated solution that makes payments a seamless part of their online and offline world.
Here’s a sneak peek:
The real challenge isn’t online, Helgeson said. “Anybody can make this stuff work online; anybody can make it work in an app.” The challenge, he said, is in-store. “When you actually have to walk into a store and redeem that offer, what happens next?” If a merchant’s POS system doesn’t integrate with mobile payment apps and wallets, for example, and a customer can’t redeem an offer, it’s a negative consumer experience due to a system shortcoming that must be solved. “The loyalty offers, rewards, discounts – that’s what’s next here,” he said, then added that it’s essentially “the secret sauce for all of these merchants to drive consumer behavior.”
In order for payments to evolve, Helgeson said, they need to be extracted from the POS. Alternately, he said, the POS must have the ability to readily work with all types of payments and programs without having to build deep integrations for every single one of them.
……………..
To download the March edition of the PYMNTS.com Payments as a Service Tracker™, click the button below.
About the Tracker
The PYMNTS.com Payments as a Service Tracker™, in collaboration with Cayan, is a monthly report designed to give an overview of the trends and activities of merchant platforms that not only enable payment processing of new and old technologies, but that also integrates with other features that make the merchant’s experience easier, such as customer engagement, security, omnichannel retail experience, analytics, inventory management, software and hardware management, and more.
The tracker also includes the latest news and highlights about key players of the Payments as a Service space, as well as a directory describing key providers and their capabilities and a scoring for each firm.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
Learn More