Credit card swipers have been one of the many building blocks that businesses dealing with credit card processing rely upon. They make transactions quick, convenient and, in a perfect world, secure.
The interesting fact about these swipers is that they haven’t always been so sophisticated. They had meager beginnings that allowed them to evolve into the same machines that countless parties use to act as a link between merchant accounts and consumers during the process of transactions.
Let’s explore how credit card swipers have changed before examining how they will change in the near future.
The Beginning of Credit Card Machines
When credit cards were first introduced, only the largest and most profitable companies could afford machines to process them. They require dedicated lines and large machines.
If a business didn’t have one of these swipers, they would be forced to take credit card details down and charge the card manually. This could create a bounty of problems, which is why credit cards were not accepted on a regular basis until credit card swipers became more accessible to business owners.
When credit card swipers did become accessible, they were just swipers connected to telephone lines for data transmission.
The Modern Credit Card Machine
It wasn’t until various features were added to credit cards themselves that credit card swipers began to evolve.
For example, the ability to add a pin or to verify a card’s zip code required a pad to be added to machines. Prompts that asked for cash back were another feature that simply worked its way into these machines.
To further bridge the gap between merchant accounts and the accounts of customers, credit card swipers were upgraded to allow for more compact data transmission while becoming that much more reliable. This reduced the number of duplicate transactions, which in turn made the cost of using credit card processor cheaper for business.
The Future of Credit Card Swipers
While the future is hard for anyone to predict, there are some indications as to where the future of credit card machine service is headed.
With the large breaches that started with poor credit card swiper security, machines that utilize chips in cards to create unique transactions will likely become commonplace. New features that increase the safety of such machines will help both business owners and customers alike.
Another possibility is that credit card machines will move to become less reliant on the act of swiping. Cards may move to chips that need only be held within the proximity of a machine to conduct a transaction, though this technology does have a few security concerns.
The bottom line concerning credit card processing machines is that they will likely change for the better of consumers, businesses and credit card processors. This will result in more cost- and time-efficient services, which in turn will foster more business overall