The recent years have shown that the main problem of migration to a cashless ecosystem, especially in developing countries had been the negative commercial and technical barriers to equipping all merchants with electronic payment acceptance devices. Hotels, restaurants and boutiques and large retail outlets/chains were the traditional locations that were targeted by acquirers for a traditional Point of Sales terminal. Small merchants, entrepreneurs who run neighborhood kiosks, stores, restaurants, minimarkets and other enterprises have been widely excluded from such financial services, unable to participate in the market at a cost they can afford, and to enable cashless payment systems to develop and thrive businesses.
Small merchants, entrepreneurs who run neighborhood kiosks, stores, restaurants, minimarkets and other enterprises have been widely excluded from such financial services, unable to participate in the market at a cost they can afford, and to enable cashless payment systems to develop and thrive businesses.
An estimated 180 million micro merchants operate and conduct business with more than 4.5 billion customers daily. These transactions, worth $6.5 trillion per year, are often cash-based. It is evident that digital payment transactions bear a high potential, both technically and economically to bring these merchants into the financial system.
With the opportunities currently being presented, particularly the ever-increasing technological advances of mobile communication, BGS has introduced its latest product offering BGS Mobile Pay. It is a new set of products and services developed for the requirements of small merchant ecosystems, based on the experience and expertise gathered in more than 20 years as a solution provider for banks in developing economies.
The main focus of the offering lies on the flexibility and scalability of the solution. The success comes with the simplicity of the concept and the ease of use. It consists of three main parts catering for the client side, the merchant side and the transaction engine on the host. The heart of the system is the merchant application, which can be operated on a tablet or even on the smartphone of the merchant.
The Merchant Application is the central control- and management center of the software suite. It includes the POS system with an intuitive user interface with integrated business management tools such as inventory management, sales- and customer analytics and loyalty schemes. It caters for various front-end devices permitting their integration in the respective payment scheme and - utilizing a powerful Terminal Management System - to sync the deployed terminals instantaneously.
Payments can be accepted via various channels, using the application on a mobile phone, a tablet or alternatively on an Android POS. Within these multiple payment channels the actual payment method can be via QR code, NFC, Bluetooth or Sound Wave Sensing.