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Chip and PIN : Press Releases
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Chip and PIN
at Retail Systems Forum, Silverstone.
The retail Systems Forum offers retailers the opportunity
to learn from the practical experiences of their peers within
the industry, as well as obtain information and advice on
the latest technologies. EFT consultant Connie Penn reports. |
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The main participants are Epson,
Cash Bases, Metrolgic, Box Technologies, Magtek and Futura.
As a founder of the retail systems Forum Russell Willcox of
Box Technologies has been responsible for putting on numerous
events targeted at generating greater understanding of Retail
Technology developments within the retail IT community.
Box Technologies are involved with PIN Pad, chip card and magnetic
card reader technologies as a supplier to the retail industry
so this year he ensured that the Retail System Forum addressed
the subject of Chip and PIN in their two- day event at Silverstone. |
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Russell has been involved in
the hardware technology side of retail systems for the past
12 years and has much experience in retail systems and particularly
matters of technology integration at the Point of Sale.
For the Chip and PIN presentations he bought together speakers
from the PMO - The Chip and PIN Program Management Office, Marks
and Spencer who have been involved in the development of their
system for the Northampton trial and Connie Penn as an independent
EFT consultant. The general retail subject including: "How
Shell increased operational efficiency and developed a reliable
platform for upgrades and expansion"
"The development of new standard for improving business
processes including integrated supply chain management"
and "How jeweller, Hebert Brown has implemented a stock
management system which tracks high value items across the business
and captures customer details" were also covered. The
interesting thing about the Retail Systems Forum is that it
caters for both VAR's and retailer customers on separate days,
so that both participants in IT developments at the Point of
Sale are kept informed of new innovations. On the customer day
HSBC attended and bought some of their customers to the forum
to hear about Chip and PIN from a different perspective than
from an Acquirer perspective. Visa International Chip Business
Support representative Steven Price attended. Barclaycard were
also represented at the retail customer day. |
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The PMO has run two vendor
forums, but this, as far as we know is the first forum where
retail systems VAR's were specifically catered for. Although
on the VAR day the vendors participated in a carting event,
they were so interested and hungry for additional information
on Chip and PIN, that they broke off from the entertainment
to ask questions and gain more information throughout the afternoon
and evening. |
The comments from
both days were extremely positive and gave an interesting insight
into the view from the retailer and VAR perspective as well
as proving that the Acquirers and Visa do actually want to learn
how to communicate more effectively with the retailers.From
the Acquirer and Visa's perspective, their comments indicated
that they also found the forum a useful means of identifying
the perspective of Chip and PIN in the marketplace. Comments
included:
"Met my objective of informing
what retailers are spending money on and what their focus is
and also their readiness / understanding of EMV"
"It will help me refine Visa's programme and
approaches to better support the UK market needs."
"A chance to check the pulse of the industry at a crucial
time in its developments."
Retailers and suppliers on the other hand commented as follows;
"Excellent overview of the Chip issue"
"Came to learn - succeeded"
"The live experience of M&S was most interesting"
Another interesting comment is that the Forum seemed to indicate
to the retailer that, "Lots of planning and work will
be necessary from all parties to get the retailer in a position
to move with Chip and Pin and avoid the liability shift",
but there was also a lot of concern that "the technology
and systems appear to be available in the market place, but
only two companies have accreditation".
This is a subject that is concerning not just the retailers
but suppliers as well and one that needs to be urgently addresses
by the Acquirers. |
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