Ingenico And Intel To Develop a Point-of-Sale Tablet Supporting EMV and NFC

Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico Group and chip-maker Intel Corp. will work on producing a tablet that supports EMV chip card and near-field communication (NFC) transactions, Ingenico announced Thursday.

The tablet is in response to the U.S. payment card migration to the EMV chip card standard, and the growing adoption of NFC for contactless payments using smart phones.

Beginning Oct. 1, retailers that do not accept EMV credit and debit cards could be responsible for fraud committed with those cards if they do not have EMV-capable POS terminals.

Neither Ingenico nor Intel released specifics about the device or any accompanying services, such as if the tablet also will accept magnetic-stripe transactions, when it will be available, how much it will cost, and if it will be available for resale programs.

Intel will supply data-protection technology, while Ingenico will provide the payment-acceptance technology for the tablets, which first will be developed for the U.S. and Canadian markets. Ingenico says follow-on products will include vending machines, kiosks, and digital signage.

Tablet point-of-sale systems have proven to be increasingly popular with merchants, both as fixed countertop devices and as mobile acceptance devices for use around the store or restaurant. The Ingenico-Intel collaboration will result in one of the first tablet POS systems to come on the market with integrated EMV and NFC capability, giving it the capability to handle not only chip cards but also contactless cards and mobile payments that rely on NFC, such as Apple Pay.

The move also represents a major move into the payments business for Intel. The chipmaker’s previous payments foray involved a global collaboration with MasterCard Inc. in 2011 to enable secure transactions on ultrabooks, an ultra-thin type of laptop computer.

“The shift in liability this October will be a major milestone in the United States for banks and credit card companies, but especially for retailers,” said Doug Davis, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the company’s Internet of Things Group, in a statement. “Intel and Ingenico Group are working to bridge the retail experience and security gap while also making sure devices are easy to deploy and manage so we don't create new burdens for the merchants.”