Perfecting the offline checkout experience

Everyday I buy my coffee I suffer from a bad experience at the checkout. It's the same ordinary checkout experience we all suffer, because it's just how everyone does it. I propose some solutions that could streamline our lives. Many of these options are not just technical, they need government regulation to encourage the payment gateways to make the change.

Why do i have so many cards?

I have a wallet full of cards, one credit card for personal, one credit card for family account, one credit card for business account, and another cash card for the personal and family account, because kiwibank couldn't load my cash accounts on the same card as my mastercards. Then i have the "one card" for countdown too, plus my cafe loyalty card... etc

What about PayPass?

PayPass is a great fast option, however, I am still faced with which account I want to pay from, is it a personal coffee, or a business meeting? Do i really want to do an expense claim later, or just select the right account at the point of sale? Why can't i choose the limit that does not require a pin number?

Solution: One Card, Multiple Providers

We don't need so many cards, we only need one personal card (or electronic wallet, or bluetooth wand, or smart phone, or NFC, or keyring bar code, or a fingerprint).

Present ID - Just insert, swipe, wave or electronic dance or fingerprint, your choice.
Select Account (from any bank, paypal, google wallet etc, and credit cards automatically filtered out if not accepted by merchant)
Enter Security PIN , eg payment provider PIN or nothing if under $x or nothing if fingerprint etc

Why do i need a loyalty card?

Surely my partner and I could register both our credit cards, and cash cards with Countdown or New World, so that we automatically get our points when we swipe to pay.

Cash register software companies could do more with their till software to make it a simple step to confirm "do you want to join our loyalty program" and for every future transaction on the same card, it automatically records the points, and then the till might say, hey you got a discount today, thanks for being a loyal customer.

Loyalty programs would do better to make the programs easier to use without cards, while spending their time communicating with you via social media instead to get you back in their stores.

Present ID
Loyalty discounts identified and balance adjusted
Select Account (from any bank)
Enter Security PIN

Do you want your receipt?

Yes i do, but not on paper that is going to get lost, or become illegible within 2 minutes. Please can the Point of Sale software send a PDF version of the receipt to my bank or payment provider? If i need a refund or warranty claim, I will have the receipt and all terms and conditions via my online banking. And my accountant will get copies of my receipts from Xero who fetched the same from the bank. And if i wonder what an odd transaction is, I won't need to wait long to find out.

Present ID
Loyalty discounts identified and balance adjusted
Select Account (from any bank)
Enter Security PIN (if required)
Receive paperless reciepts via online banking

Supporting Government Needs and GST on International Purchases

The government might like to regulate payment gateways to collect more information about each transaction such as the GST value if any, the GST number of the merchant, the legal head office of the merchant, the physical locality of transaction, the delivery destination country, and the IP address of card not present customer. With this information in the payment networks, government could automatically charge GST on small international purchases, when required, with no administrative effort. Customs could more easily identify parcels of interest not originating from trusted senders.

Posted: Thursday 10 October 2013