While many savvy shoppers had already adopted contactless payment methods over the past decade, the Covid-19 pandemic created a need for a radical rethink of payments in retail. Many customers were forced to change their payment habits when they were required to abandon cash and pay via contactless or services such as PayPal when shopping online.


A large portion of shoppers have since embraced these payment methods, yet some are still frustrated by the speed at which payments take to process or have lingering security concerns when presented with a point-of-sale device.


And with this digital-first approach to payments come the inevitable associated risks. While many devices can be updated remotely at the touch of a button, enabling an unprecedented ability to combat security risks and adopt new features, high-profile IT outages - such as those recently experienced by the likes of McDonald's, Tesco and Sainsbury's – have raised concerns about the reliability of payment systems and what to do should they fail.


To examine these issues, Retail Systems was joined by Kevin Marlow, Senior Product Manager for Point of Sale Interactions at Cashflows.