STS, a leading payments acceptance software specialist, and Embross, a leading self-service technology provider, today announce their partnership and successful accreditation of an in-airport self-service check-in solution. This is the second successful multi-merchant payments acceptance solution that STS has developed, with initial deployment set for Calgary Airport, Canada.
Previously, payment systems have always been tied to individual merchants, which prevented sharing of expensive hardware. A change in market dynamics has seen an increase in the shared use of self-service kiosks across a variety of merchant environments. These include pop-up stores, surgeries, salons, hospitals, entertainment venues, service stations and within the transport industry, leading to the need for solutions that can connect to different applications and acquirers.
STS’ agnostic G8 multi-merchant solution, running at both Enterprise and Client level, allows for system combinations and settings to be changed automatically for each transaction, meaning it can connect to any EPOS application, acquirer or hardware. During a transaction, a source EPOS ID is sent to G8 allowing STS to correctly process the payment and then redirect it to where it needs to go for settlement.
G8, connected with Embross’ Common Use Self-Service (CUSS) platform, enables payments for different airlines using the same payment terminal, in this case the Verifone unattended UX301. This involves dynamically loading each airlines merchant-specific static data onto the terminal prior to initiating a transaction. G8 supports a variety of payments including magnetic stripe, EMV Chip and Contactless as well as NFC based mobile payments.
“Self-service technology providers like Embross have had to tackle unique challenges faced by the transport industry,” says Bing Dai, Chief Commercial Officer at STS. “Multi-merchant support allows them to seamlessly switch between different POS applications that may be used by different transport companies, such as airlines.”
Bing continues, “STS and Embross’ solution can be used at unattended airport kiosks for passenger check-in and bag drop, and passengers can also pay for upgrades and excess baggage charges.”
This first deployment is a self-service bag-drop, using the Embross VELOCITYBagDropRetrofit (VBD-R). The VBD-R utilises an innovative “Smart Arm” design that can be fitted to any existing baggage belt and provides a complete baggage processing system. The self-service kiosk provides passengers with a touch screen that is configurable to deliver everything from a rapid, bag drop only service to a full service for check-in, self-tagging and payments.
Prior to having STS’ solution, passengers would have to leave a check-in desk halfway through to go to another desk to pay for upgrades and baggage. This was a key challenge that the G8 multi-merchant solution has successfully tackled. As these kiosks can be used by multiple airlines, the payment solution needs to be able to connect to different applications and acquirers. G8’s unique ability to connect to these makes it the perfect product to help meet these multi-merchant requirements.