Long, slow lines frustrate your customers. But they’re not good for you, either. The faster you can complete a transaction, the more customers you can serve, and the more money you can make.
Now you can make wait times at the checkout counter even faster — and still just as secure — for you and your customers. With our latest update, Square Reader for contactless and chip and Square Register can process chip cards in just two seconds (previously 3.6 seconds), without requiring a signature.
“Since chip cards arrived in the U.S., we have focused on making our chip reader fast for our sellers, and three seconds or more wasn’t quick enough,” said Jesse Dorogusker, head of hardware at Square. “Taking an EMV payment in as little as two seconds helps speed up the line for our sellers, gives time back to their customers, and reduces in-store fraud in the U.S. Square sellers don’t need to compromise performance to reap the benefits of newer, more secure technology like EMV.”
No doubt you’ve heard customers complain about chip cards at some point. The speed of chip card transactions (or lack thereof) is the most frustrating part of the chip card experience, according to a study we conducted.
But chip card transactions are often slower because there are more robust security checks than there are with traditional magstripe cards. As a result, fraud dropped 70 percent from September 2015 to December 2017 for retailers that upgraded their hardware to accept chip cards, according to Visa.
So we worked with our partners at the major payment networks to make sure you can take payments faster while keeping in-store fraud at bay.
All you have to do is turn on your reader (and open the POS app), Stand, or Register — the update happens automatically. When you take a transaction for the first time, your customer will be able to remove their card immediately once the reading is complete. They won’t have to wait for the issuer response.
To speed up your transactions even further, we’ve updated our POS app so you can remove the signature requirement altogether — for any transaction amount. (Don’t worry, the chip card technology helps reduce fraud, and all our card partners agree signatures are not needed.)
“We get a rush of customers all ready to close out their open beer tabs at the same time,” said Regan Long, cofounder and brewmaster at Local Brewing Co., a brewery and beer bar around the corner from the Giants’ AT&T Park in San Francisco. “With Square’s chip card reader update, we’ve cut processing time in half — helping us keep customers happy and on their way to catch the first pitch.”
