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11/08/2009 -
One of the latest trends in payment card processing, enabled by recent technological advancements, is the self-checkout point-of-sale (POS) terminal. Self-checkout terminals, which allow customers to complete their purchases independent of a store employee, have been growing rapidly in popularity in recent years, especially in the retail industry.
A new study from Retail Banking Research found that the number of self-checkout units installed worldwide increased 28 percent from 2007 to 2008, reaching 92,600 units, cited KioskMarketplace.com.
In addition, global shipments increased 19 percent to 22,800 shipments in the same time period.
North America has the largest share of self-checkout terminals - 80 percent of the global total, numbering 74,000 units in service.
This technology is expected to see further tremendous growth, as the study projected that the global number of installed self-checkout POS terminals will grow by more than 400 percent to reach 430,000 units by 2014, with North America still representing half of those units, the website reported.
Self-checkout terminals are often appealing to merchants because they allow employees to supervise more than one transaction, while customers appreciate the speed and convenience.
According to data from Hypercom, there are 30 million credit card POS terminals of all types worldwide.
