POS Innovation in the Cloud

“As payments people, we sometimes forget the relationship between the retailers and the consumers and software used to foster that,” said Chip Kahn (IP Commerce Founder & CEO).

Exploring innovations at the point of sale (POS), Kahn suggested ideas for solving issues of consumer adoption and delivering new POS models to retailers. He encouraged payments professionals to take advantage of broadband and SaaS solutions.

“There’s too much time spent talking about APIs, and APIs do not drive a platform,” he said.

Kahn pointed to collaboration and tiered models around monetization that deliver value to both sides as the keys to driving POS innovation and thus a more positive experience for customers. At IP Commerce, Kahn said the company has seen a 20-25% transactional growth in unattended POS.

“Ultimately, retailers want to improve their interactions with consumers, and they use software to do that,” said Kahn. “Consumers are getting more facile with their own ability to interact with payments systems.”

However, he discouraged companies from being what he called a “telemarketing pandhandler” by sending mobile coupons to consumers even if they only walk by the store.

Kahn cited group flash sales, referencing Groupon in particular, as a good POS model to follow.

POS innovation winners will address implementation, simplification, be canonical, and be logical in cloud facilities, summed up Kahn. They’ll need to offer a rich, two-way interface and governance that take advantage of cloud computing capabilities.

“I think there are some big companies that don’t get this… It’s going to impact you in the next quarter,” said Kahn.

At the end of this presentation, Kahn made sure to note that he did not talk about NFC at all.

PYMNTS.com Blog Entries from the Innovation Institute

Day 1

1. David S. Evans: Why the Time Is Right for Innovation (and Cash Is Not Dead) (9 a.m.)
2. No Need to Give a Eulogy for Venture Capital (10 a.m.)
3. There’s Two Sides to Every [Payments Platform] Story (11:30 a.m.)
4. The Key to Igniting and Launching Mobile Payments Platforms (12:30 p.m.)
5. Fed’s Proposal for Interchange Rates to Be Announced Within a Few Weeks (2:30 p.m.)
6. What Payments Professionals Can Learn from FarmVille (4 p.m.)
7. Driving Network Effects with Platforms (4:30 p.m.)
8. What Is The Next Great Payment App That Has Yet To Be Created? (5 p.m.)

Day 2

1. Can the U.S. Replicate Japan’s Mobile Payments Success? (8:30 a.m.)
2. POS Opportunities around Social Networking (9:30 a.m.)
3. POS Innovation in the Cloud (10:30 a.m.)
4. American Idol: Payments Innovation Style (Noon)
5. Federal Reserve: Cash Usage Increased in 2009 (1:30 p.m.)
6. Tips for Catering to Consumers’ Payment Preferences (2:30 p.m.)
7. How Walmart Views Consumer Payments Behavior (3 p.m.)