Today was a significant leap forward in realizing one of eMunie's core goals of enabling crypto-currencies for the masses.
The long awaited 1st native point of sale compatible transaction has been performed, no middle men, no 3rd party processors, no custom merchant hardware....just an EMV compatible debit card, run of the mill hardware and bridging software to connect directly to the eMunie network.
So why is this so important?
Current SolutionsCurrently to use your crypto-currency assets in brick and mortar stores, there are 2 solutions.
The first, is that the merchant generally requires some additional hardware along side existing POS terminals in order to accept Bitcoin/LiteCoin/others. Typically this consists of a tablet device with a connection to a 3rd party payment processor, and the customer has access to a similar service on their smartphone.
The process is very "manual", requiring scanning of QR codes/entry of addresses at the least, with entry of spend amount and other inputs sometimes required. It also requires that the customer has an active internet connection on the spending device (not always as reliable as one might assume).
While the process can be swift, on many occasions at crypto-currency events where items can be bought and this is the mechanism for payment, I myself have witnessed the cumbersome nature of this method. Frequent delays in making payment hold up other customers and reduce the turnover of customers to a mere trickle.
The second method involves a VISA or Mastercard debit card, which is provided by a 3rd party that allows the loading of BTC and other currencies to the card with in place conversion to $, £. These cards can be used in existing point of sale terminals, but have the consequence that there are fees attached for many uses of the service, currency conversion charges, loading charges, spending charges, ATM withdrawal charges. These can sometimes be in the order of a 1-2% or more, and with regular use can mount up significantly.
Additionally, if the card is lost, or is deactivated by the card provider for any of a multitude of reasons, funds can be lost and irrecoverable. Worst still your funds are entrusted to a 3rd party, and should that entity decide to close the service, they can easily exit with all customers funds that have not yet been loaded onto a card.
The eMunie SolutionThe eMunie implementation is simple, there are no 3rd parties involved, no additional hardware required, and minimal risk, both for customers and merchants. The owner of the card controls the funds associated with it at all times.
To accept payments via an eMunie debit card, the merchant will simply need to install an update for his existing hardware that connects to the eMunie network and pushes the transactions out to it.
Additional benefits for the merchant are the lack of processing fees, and no requirement to hold a merchant account with a bank. Merchants can simply accept eMunie payments to a wallet they control directly, and cash out via the decentralized on/off ramps available via our TRAID network when convenient for them.
Furthermore, eMunie debit card payments offer increased anonymity over the above methods and of course traditional fiat debit cards. The merchant only has visibility to card address, and information such as your name, DOB, physical addresses or other personal data is not required or transmitted.
Cards can be imported into clients, so even if you loose your card, you can still access the funds and move them to another account or card. Loading funds to a card is a simple case of sending funds to its address from another wallet, be it on a PC, Tablet or Phone, the card never needs to be connected to be able to spend them at a later time.
This technology is unique to eMunie, and is a key requirement to achieving mass market penetration. We know of no other crypto-currency that can enable native point of sale payments in this manner due to the limitations of block chain and similar ledger technologies, nor do we know of any in development that can match it.
Moving ForwardDuring the course of the next week some video demos will be constructed to show the process in action. Shortly after there will also be a beta with these capabilities enabled, and instructions on how to create a point of sale simulator, along with details of off the shelf hardware, will be provided allowing a first hand test drive of the technology on the test network.
Embracing newer technologies is a small step once the development of the basic features is completed, with the possibility of contactless cards and mobile device contactless payments easily supported.
Information on how this is achieved possible will be covered in 2 articles discussing our ledger technology scheduled for release over the next week or so.
Until then here is a fun mockup of what an eMunie debit card may resemble, with an example of a possible front configuration of data:
