Digital Lifescapes

The traditional point-of-sale (POS) terminal has traveled a remarkable journey since IBM's first mainframe-connected models emerged in the 1970s. What began as clunky screen interfaces tethered to distant computers has evolved into a diverse ecosystem of payment solutions. Today, we stand at the precipice of the most significant transformation yet: the rise of soft POS technology that promises to democratize digital payments for businesses of all sizes. At its core, this evolution reflects a broader shift from hardware dependency to software flexibility. Global POS Market Development With their dedicated terminals, fixed installations, and substantial upfront costs, traditional POS systems have long served as gatekeepers to in-store or mobile payment acceptance. Small businesses, micro-enterprises, and mobile retailers often found themselves locked out of the digital economy, forced to rely on cash transactions or make significant capital investments in POS hardware. Soft POS techn...

Societal shifts have affected how retail customers shop. The move toward a 'cashless' society was accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to more eCommerce transactions and online spending. Meanwhile, in-store retail Point of Sale (POS) terminals transformed. Traditional hardware-based POS systems evolved into specialized solutions, which provide compact mobile terminals. However, the arrival of software-based 'Soft POS' solutions will disrupt this market. Soft POS Market Development All POS systems process payment transactions by forming a connection between a buyer’s and a seller’s respective bank accounts for the transaction to occur, and actioning the exchange of funds. According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the global transaction value processed via Soft POS solutions will reach $11.8 billion by 2028, which is up from $1 billion in 2023. New growth will be driven by Apple’s launch of 'Tap to Pay', coupled with the Soft...

The way shoppers pay for products has evolved due to the rise of eCommerce during the pandemic. Online retail transactions have grown rapidly, and in many parts of the world, in-person cash transactions are now a smaller percentage of retail payments. These changes have a significant implication for retail point-of-sale (POS) terminal vendors, as consumers choose to shop less at local in-store retailers and more online, or the vendor may lack the functional capabilities to process contactless payments. The evolution of payment interactions has driven an in-store retailer transformation. With COVID-19 pandemic-related government control measures and the ongoing public wariness in many nations, non-contact forms of payment are becoming even more popular. POS Terminal Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research , the total value of transactions processed by POS terminals will exceed $17.3 trillion in 2026 -- that's up from $14.8 trillion in 20...

During the last decade, mobile app developers and start-up fintech vendors have offered a variety of innovative digital wallet solutions across global markets. Due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic and the move away from cash-based payments, digital wallet apps have gained rapid new user adoption. Initially, digital wallets centered on providing easy eCommerce payments or consumer person-to-person payments. This early growth enabled large tech companies -- such as Google, Apple, and PayPal -- to launch services and achieve a presence across the online payments and global retail ecosystems. Digital Wallet App Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the total consumer spending via digital wallet apps will exceed $10 trillion in 2025 -- that's up from an estimated $5.5 trillion in 2020. Moreover, the research findings found a dramatic 83 percent growth in digital wallet spending will be fuelled by the heightened adoption of digital payment...

While forward-looking banks and other progressive financial service companies explore ways to develop new eCommerce offerings for online customers, there's still growing momentum within some legacy organizations to pursue an enhancement to traditional in-store payment technologies. Up to 2.5 million biometric payment cards will be issued in 2021 as the market reaps the benefits of significant ecosystem efforts, tailored specially to help reduce product cost, improve yield, and simplify manufacturing processes, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. Today over 20 biometric payment card pilots are active globally, and the first commercial launch, by BNP Paribas, was announced earlier in 2020. The biometric payment card is a form-factor to help enhance secure authentication, providing a new 'contactless' Point-of-Sale (POS) payment experience. Digital Payments Market Development "It’s taken time for the biometric payment card market to take shape ...

Following the transition from magnetic stripe to EMV (smart cards that store data on integrated circuit chips), the U.S. retail market is upgrading to contactless point-of-sale (POS) terminals. Meanwhile, 100 percent of POS terminals may already be contactless-enabled in Canada, the UK and Japan. Moreover, Visa reports that about 50 percent of its in-person transactions (outside the U.S.) are already contactless, through payment cards and mobile devices. In the U.S. market, where the EMV rollout is recent, it's estimated that 52.7 percent of POS terminals were now contactless-enabled in 2019. Contactless POS Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the installed base of contactless-enabled POS devices will exceed 161 million by 2024 -- growing from 78 million devices in 2019. Contactless POS devices will then be about 94 percent of all POS devices in use. Juniper believes that this growth will be driven by the deployment of cont...

By the end of 2019, eCommerce will have a significant role to play in economic growth, with 44 percent of the global population forecast to purchase physical goods and 27 percent purchasing digital goods. Moving deeper in the digital era, retailers are now focused on customer retention and reduced costs through the application of new technologies -- such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, internet of things (IoT) and machine-to-machine communications (M2M), among others. The growth of eRetail transactions has been so significant over the last decade that online payments for physical goods purchases exceeded the $2 trillion mark for the first time in 2017. Two years later, the market size has grown to $2.9 trillion spent online for the purchase of physical goods worldwide in 2019; reaching a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.8 percent. Payment Platforms Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, revenue from payment p...

The benefit of a digital wallet is that, for both online and offline transactions, it enables the wallet user to easily make secure, quick transactions, thereby removing the requirement for a plastic card -- or the need to enter bank account details for every online purchase. For the 'unbanked' populous across the globe, the availability of a digital wallet and cryptocurrency on a mobile phone will provide a means of financial inclusion, both as an alternative to cash payments and as a way of accessing services such as personal loans and savings accounts. Digital Wallet Market Development For the savvy digital wallet provider, the fintech revolution in online payments and person-to-person remittance has enabled several new players to achieve a growing presence across the global financial services and retail ecosystems. In some cases, this transition enables vendors to provide offline or online payments on their own and via third-party storefronts, together with consumer...

Despite having existed for more than a decade, virtual cards have been applied to a limited range of business cases for much of their history; primarily Business to Business (B2B) travel purchasing and commercial vehicle fleet management. However, the benefits of card virtualization are starting to evolve outside this narrow application, which is already having an impact on adjacent sectors -- including a move by several fintech players into the business to consumer space, thereby augmenting online account security through the use of their virtual cards. Virtual Card Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the annual value of virtual cards (e.g. temporary card numbers only available for a single transaction or limited time) used by businesses will grow by 90 percent over the next four years -- exceeding $1 trillion by 2022. This is up from an estimated annual value of $568 million in 2019. However, Juniper analysts believe that the...

There's a huge upside opportunity for digital payment innovation in America. As of December 2017, Juniper Research estimates that only 9 percent of the total payment cards in circulation within the U.S. market was contactless-enabled -- this translates into just over 100 million cards. While this is a significant installed base -- around 13 percent of total chip cards issued in the U.S. market -- Juniper estimates that only 5.5 percent of the cards were actually used to make contactless offline point-of-sale purchases in 2017. This translates into about 6 million contactless cards used for payments. That's relatively low in comparison with more advanced markets such as Canada (60 million) and the UK (108 million). Contactless Payment Market Development Juniper Research forecasts that driven by payment cards and mobile wallets, in-store contactless payments will reach $2 trillion by 2020 -- that represents 15 percent of the total point of sale transactions. Furthermore...

Savvy CIOs and CTOs in the the retail sector have embraced new technologies that enable them to evolve their business models -- both in-store and online. In particular, automation applications that improve productivity are likely to receive significant IT investment. Artificial Intelligence (AI), computer vision and robotics will ultimately enable retailers across the globe to provide improved customer experiences, streamline legacy business processes, and increase diminishing profit margins. Smart Retail Tech Market Development Brick and mortar retailers can, therefore, improve their chances of remaining competitive if they employ these technologies correctly, prioritizing long-term investment over short-sighted strategies, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. "The high-cost barrier associated with AI, computer vision and robotics will ultimately be overcome by the potential for these technologies to offset the inherent disadvantages facing phy...

Contactless payment cards offer an array of benefits to both the retailer and consumer, such as faster throughput at the Point of Sale (POS) terminal, potentially leading to increased sales and reduced operating costs from cash handling. However, to succeed the contactless card needs the attendant payment infrastructure to be upgraded to support contactless transactions, thus requiring co-operation from the various stakeholders in retail payments. Contactless Payment  Market Development According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, the number of OEM-Pay contactless users -- including Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay -- will exceed 100 million for the first time during the first half of 2017, before surpassing 150 million by the end of this year. The combined market share of Apple, Samsung, and Google (via Android Pay), increased from 20 percent in 2015 to 41 percent in 2016, as a proportion of total mobile contactless payment users. Juniper forecasts that...

Retailers across the globe continue to invest in new payment technologies, as the growing use of mobile devices, associated software applications and cloud-based financial services enter the mainstream marketplace. ABI Research forecasts the point of sale (POS) hardware market will increase to more than $4.5 billion in 2021, with revenues generated from a combination of traditional POS and mPOS -- which employs a smartphone or media tablet as the cash register. Merchants looking to enhance convenience and foster new experiences and transaction choices at the point of sale will propel POS hardware development over the next five years. POS Technology Market Development "Arguably, despite hype, mPOS did not yet eat into the traditional POS market as many industry experts initially hoped," said Phil Sealy, senior analyst at ABI Research . This is reinforced by the vendor emphasis on competitive pricing strategies on hardware devices, used in a bid to gain market share a...

Use of cash varies widely, even in developed markets. However, there's been steady growth of credit and debit card use across the globe. Therefore, point-of-sale (POS) terminals are becoming more commonplace, as growth is driven by adoption of electronic payments by emerging markets. For example, China experienced the most significant growth among the larger emerging economies during 2015, with a year-on-year increase in terminal numbers of ~20 percent. Industry analysts estimate that the global total number of POS terminals reached nearly 80 million in 2015. Worldwide POS Transaction Growth A new market study by Juniper Research has found that the value of contactless POS terminal transactions -- conducted in-store via cards, mobile phones and wearables -- will approach $500 billion annually by 2017; that's up from an estimated $321 billion this year. However, the low value nature of contactless payments means that it will only represent about 5 percent of the total va...

The global retail sector is undergoing a significant disruption from technology-based innovations. Online eCommerce is part of the story, but there's nearly as many dramatic changes occurring within physical retail stores -- particularly at the point of sale (POS). A POS terminal is an electronic device used to process card or contactless mobile payments at retail or merchant locations such as stores, restaurants etc. The terminal can be owned by the retailer or an acquirer-owned terminal (i.e. provided on a rental basis to the merchant). According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, the global value of contactless POS terminal transactions -- conducted in-store via cards, mobile phones and wearables -- will approach $500 billion annually by 2017; that's up from an estimated $321 billion this year. However, the low value nature of contactless payments means that it will only represent just 5 percent of the total value of all worldwide POS transactions in 2017....

Law enforcement officials often make the claim that "crime doesn't pay" and that criminals will always be punished, eventually. However, that's typically not the case for cyber criminals. Earlier this year Trustwave released the findings from a worldwide market study which revealed the top cybercrime, data breach and security threat trends from 2014. The resulting report disclosed how much criminals can profit from malware attacks, which data they target, how they get inside, how long it takes for businesses to detect and contain data breaches, what types of businesses criminals are targeting and where the majority of victims are located. Trustwave gathered data from the 574 breach investigations that the company's security experts conducted in 2014 across 15 countries, in addition to threat intelligence gleaned from their five global Security Operations Centers, security scanning and penetration testing results, telemetry from security technologies distribute...

Since 2011, expectations have been high that mobile contactless payments -- enabled via Near Field Communications (NFC) -- would rapidly gain traction around the world. This has not come to pass. Disagreements and uncertainties over business models and standards, combined with a failure to communicate the benefits of a transition to contactless, led to a cycle of indifference towards NFC. Juniper Research has found that the number of consumers making contactless payments via their mobile handsets would reach 300 million globally by 2017 -- that's up from just over 110 million last year. The Juniper global market study found that many markets were being seeded for mobile contactless adoption by accelerated rollout of contactless cards. These rollouts were being accompanied by marked increases in contactless POS (Point of Sale) terminals, with leading vendors VeriFone and Ingenico both now shipping the majority of their terminals with NFC as standard. Apparent Need to Educa...

As the mobile phone evolved from basic voice communication device to a multifaceted lifestyle accessory, making payments has become a key element within that evolution. The mobile device, be it a smartphone or featurephone, can now be used to make payments -- either remotely or at the Point of Sale (PoS). The value of global payments via mobile devices will reach around $507 billion this year -- that's an increase of nearly 40 percent year-on-year, according to the latest market study by Juniper Research. The Juniper study found that growth would continue to be driven by purchases of physical goods via mobile devices. Moreover, average transaction sizes over media tablets are already exceeding those via desktop PCs in many markets. It also observed that while spend via smartphones was increasing sharply, their primary function in retail was as search and discovery devices -- with the final purchase more typically being made via a tablet. Meanwhile, Juniper argued that the s...

The U.S. mobile payment landscape is progressing very slowly. Although two-thirds of American consumers are interested in learning more about transitioning to a smartphone wallet platform, that interest is simply not translating into adoption. While traditional point of sale payment methods continue to reign supreme, a number of third-party mobile wallets are jockeying for position in the U.S. marketplace -- but not all have the vision needed for long-term survival. To endure the inevitable wave of consolidation, a well-defined road-map paired with patience and endurance will be among the many competencies required. According to the latest market study by the Yankee Group, they ranked the staying power of Google Wallet, Isis, LevelUp, Loop, MCX, PayPal, and Square as determined by the strength of their merchant and consumer value propositions and ability to deliver on them. Highlights from the market study include: Mobile wallets remain a story of high interest and low adopt...

Contactless payment technology is applied when the user fulfills a transaction by tapping a card or mobile phone handset against a Chip & PIN machine, rather than swiping a debit or credit card through the Point of Sale (POS) terminal. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, the number of contactless transactions via mobile handsets will exceed 9.9 billion globally by 2018 -- that's up from just over 3 billion this year. Their study findings found that two key disruptive factors -- HCE (Host Card Emulation) and the anticipated launch of Apple’s iWallet -- were likely to spur additional contactless transaction growth in the medium term. HCE transforms a smartphone app into a virtual smartcard, so that for NFC (Near Field Communication) transactions, the SE (secure element) no longer has to be physically present in the handset. How Standards Enable Market Development According to Juniper's assessment, utilizing a remote HCE-based SE can reduce time...