Electronic Merchant Systems
Transforming the Payments Landscape

With mobile technology making inroads into the retail sector, consumer behavior for payments has shifted to NFC and mobile platforms such as Apple Pay and Android Pay. Payment security standards have also evolved resulting in consumers using chip cards that can be ‘dipped’ into retailers’ EMV-compliant hardware as opposed to ‘swiping’ magnetic stripe cards. Businesses adapting to meet the consumer demands battle confusing pricing models or even fully retooling their payment infrastructure. Bringing seamless mobility into SMBs and empowering them to accept customer payments from EMV, non-EMV cards and mobile platforms is Electronic Merchant Systems (EMS). Having demonstrated its prowess in providing payment processing solutions since 1988, EMS currently serves tens of thousands of retail, internet and start-up businesses nationwide. “Our solution requires no monthly fees or expensive POS investments and has therefore resonated with merchants,” says Merrell Sheehan, VP, Product Development, EMS.

EMS+—the mobile payment application by EMS, allows merchants to process any type of debit or credit card transaction. The all-in-one Bluetooth peripheral device provided with EMS+ handles EMV chip and non-chip cards as well as NFC phone payments. With a built-in POS functionality, EMS+ is operable in two modes. The simple payments mode allows users to insert cards and get an authorization. The order entry mode allows merchants to perform a register sales operation by adding products and services, print a receipt and accept payment through multiple models such as magnetic stripe swipe, mobile, and digital wallet services or inserted chip card. “Recently we added an email invoicing feature into the solution as it seemed apt for a good percentage of our users,” mentions Sheehan.

Further, the scope for adding a myriad of customer details such as email, or create new product inventories, cost and retail prices, inventory levels etc.,—provides merchants a wide range of data that can be imported into other applications used by the merchant for carrying out other operations. Highly interoperable in nature, EMS Mobile works on iOS and Android platforms, unlike the traditional credit card machines. Not falling back on security, the EMS+ payments application is fully PCI compliant, adding that the company has been a PCI Level 1 certified service provider, for the eleventh consecutive year now.

EMS has essentially redefined the delivery model for clients through its mobile payments application. Sheehan mentions that merchants wanting to deploy EMS+, can sign up online, obtain the approval and process their consumers’ card payments, all in the same day. “Merchants will have to pay a nominal 2.25 percent per swiped card transaction as the fee, which is the lowest in the industry,” remarks Sheehan. The simplified and cost-effective card processing model has driven up the adoption rates of EMS+ significantly within the retail sector. In addition to faster deployment and the business-friendly ‘pay-per-use’ model, EMS offers unparalleled live support to all its customers, round-the-clock. The well-trained staff, not only troubleshoot hardware issues faced by the merchants but also educate customers on payment processes, security standards, and fraud detection and prevention. Feedback obtained from customers is always incorporated by the development team for further enrichment of the product.

EMS plans to build consumer engagement features into EMS+, en route its product innovation journey to help merchants drive more traffic through loyalty and reputation management tools. The company is also fully geared up to serve niche businesses with unique selling environments that necessitate industry-specific POS units. “As merchant environment, consumer demands, and technology, undergo changes, we seek to constantly ‘evergreen’ our product portfolio,” concludes Sheehan.