How to safeguard your business and customers from fraud at point of sale [whitepaper]

Retail’s digital transformation continues to unfold thanks to constant innovations that reduce friction at the point of sale (POS), making shopping even easier and more efficient, especially as many businesses go cashless. Ideal solutions are ones that are safe, secure and easy to use without the need for dedicated hardware at the POS. So, what are businesses doing to meet this need?

Enter Software Point of Sale (SoftPOS). 

SoftPOS enables commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) devices — such as smartphones and tablets — to accept contactless payments through a software app over near-field communication (NFC). 

Current benefits of SoftPOS to transform the future of shopping and dining

For small, medium and large businesses, SoftPOS is gaining traction as a viable alternative to using dedicated hardware. We’ve already seen the benefits of SoftPOS in action:

• Improving customer experience: Stores and restaurants can easily and more efficiently handle spikes in sales volume and customer traffic when store associates and restaurant staff can accept payment on SoftPOS applications running on enterprise Android devices. 
• Accelerating the transition to digital: SoftPOS has helped many businesses become and remain cashless, especially within industries where cash-based transactions dominate (i.e., gig workers and delivery drivers).

And still, SoftPOS is paving the way for continued payments evolution, from more advanced self-checkout/in and self-ordering kiosk terminals, to AI-enabled vending machines and smart carts. There is now greater flexibility in design and mobility with SoftPOS solutions. 

Qualcomm Technologies’ chipsets are built to safeguard SoftPOS transactions

While pilot programs for SoftPOS are underway for many businesses, the stakeholders (merchants, consumers and banks) are right to remain concerned about the overall security of transactions made through a software-based solution. From cyberthreats and fraud, to regulations within the mobile payment industry, true security calls for protection at both software and hardware levels. 

At Qualcomm Technologies, our solution starts with using existing hardware in-device to create a secure and isolated environment for SoftPOS applications. Android enterprise devices powered by Qualcomm’s System on a Chip have in-built security foundations including:

• Qualcomm Trusted Execution Environment (QTEE)
• Qualcomm wireless edge services (WES)
• Trusted User Interface (TUI) Framework

As this evolution of shopping and dining prevails, we will remain at the helm of innovation to ensure that Android enterprise devices running SoftPOS transactions will remain easy, efficient and more importantly, secure. Our whitepaper dives deeper into the future of SoftPOS and contactless payments, how to keep SoftPOS secure, and Qualcomm’s solution to hardware-based security for SoftPOS.