Why Your Old School Credit Card Swiper Is Bad for Business

Did you know the first credit card reader was created in 1979? The majority of terminals today still use that original technology. They simply run a transaction and print a paper receipt — that’s it. If you’re using an old school credit card swiper, your billing practices are decades old and, frankly, bad for business.

There’s a generation of Smart Terminals available to help your business thrive.

Here’s how they compare:

• Your old school credit card swiper can’t accept every payment method. They don’t support EMV technology, which can result in a new type of chargeback if you’re swiping chip cards. In addition, old-school terminals can’t accept contactless payment methods like Apple, Android and Samsung Pay, which are quickly gaining popularity. Smart Terminals accept all types of payments, meaning you'll never deter business. As new payment methods are released, the Smart Terminal is equipped to accept anything thrown its way.

• Your old school credit card swiper only supports outdated bookkeeping. Old-school credit card readers are one-way devices; they simply read magnetic-card data and print receipts. This forces you to hit the books and line up sales, crunch numbers and verify deposit amounts manually. Smart Terminals streamline your merchant credit card processing with online reporting and can actually communicate with your computer. Because they can send transaction data to any online software your business uses and securely store customer history in the cloud, all the information you need for accounting and reporting is in one location.

• Your old school credit card swiper forces your business to rely on paper and storage. Outdated credit card readers can only print paper receipts, which often get lost or faded. As a best practice, businesses would store these receipts off-site to protect themselves from chargebacks. The need for paper receipts and storage are eliminated with Smart Terminals. They can send digital receipts to customers, to your online software and to the cloud, where they can be stored forever.

• Your old school credit card swiper leaves your business vulnerable to fraud. The security of your old school credit card swiper leaves the door wide-open for fraud to occur. It’s very easy to counterfeit magnetic stripe cards, so if that’s the only payment method your terminal accepts, the chance of taking a fraudulent transaction is high. Smart Terminals use every security precaution to protect your business and your customers. They have more features to prevent fraud like EMV acceptance, secure storage in the cloud and card-data encryption.

Ditch Your Old School Credit Card Swiper for a Smart Terminal

Don’t get stuck in a 1970s time warp, or your business will take a hit. Embrace the next-generation technology that's available to you right now and arm your business with the best processing terminal available. By upgrading to a Smart Terminal, your business will flourish with grade-A security, a centralized location for reporting, and all your customer history and receipts digitally stored. Enter the next era of payment processing to elevate your business to the next level of success.

Do you think upgrading your processing terminal would benefit your business? As always, share your thoughts in the comments!