ALLENTOWN, PA (11/4/13) – Leading national point of sale (POS) system and merchant services provider Harbortouch has unveiled its new “future-proof” payment terminal, Perkwave. The company’s latest technological innovation features a proprietary EMV-enabled credit card terminal integrated with a customer-facing NFC reader. In addition to standard credit and debit card acceptance, this integrated solution supports the most common new payment methods:

• Near field communication (NFC) technology allows customers to simply swipe their smart phone to pay with Google Wallet, ISIS or numerous other mobile payment solutions. This technology has been rapidly gaining traction in the U.S. as the number of NFC enabled phones on the market has grown dramatically and large investments by companies such as Google, AT&T and Verizon have further encouraged adoption.
• EMV-enabled credit cards, or “smart cards”, include an embedded microprocessor that provides robust security features and other applications not possible with traditional magnetic stripe cards. Visa, MasterCard, Discover Network and American Express have recently announced that they will be migrating to EMV technology in the near future due to the added security afforded by these cards. Merchants who don’t accept EMV payments will be non-compliant once these changes go into effect and will incur increased liability for data breaches and chargebacks.

The Perkwave terminal can be updated remotely to support additional payment methods in the future and also includes a proprietary “heartbeat” feature which allows Harbortouch to monitor terminal up-time, automatically alerting the company’s technical support department if a terminal experiences any issues in the field. This feature enables the company to proactively resolve issues, in some cases before the merchant is even aware of the problem. The terminal also includes the ability for customers to receive e-receipts sent directly to their e-mail address and is compatible with the Perkwave loyalty program currently under development by Harbortouch.

Harbortouch CEO Jared Isaacman states, “As smart cards and mobile payment technologies like NFC become more widely adopted, it is going to be critical for businesses to be able to accept these payment types. We have incorporated the most prevalent of these payment technologies into this terminal so that our merchants will never have to turn a customer away due to not being able to accept their preferred form of payment. This package truly delivers a future-proof payment acceptance solution.”