How Credit Card Machines Changed How We Do Business

The evolution of credit card machines has had a huge impact on the way we do business. From manual imprinters to the advent of mobile wallet systems utilizing near-field communications (NFC), there’

Paper Imprinters Remember those swipeable plastic imprinters? You may still see them occasionally if a credit card machine suddenly crashes, or at local garage sale.

Originally, a merchant would imprint their client’s card on a multi-layered sheet of paper. One sheet would be the customer’s receipt, while another was mailed off to the bank for processing.

Paper imprinters were extremely slow and not secure. Today, most merchants still using imprinters call in the transactions for more immediate approval, and are electronically deposited.Electronic Processing Most electronic authorization was done over the phone in the early days of credit card machines. As you might expect, these calls could take up to several minutes to complete, and many businesses relied on voice authorization only for large transactions.Retail Terminals

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