Credit card imprinter

Though credit cards are in use for many years, the transactions had to be recorded manually. It was done like this – the customer used to provide his credit card; the merchant used the details that were found on the card and filled up the sales slip. The details that the merchant had to note was the name and contact details of the customer in addition to the number and expiry date of the credit card. After that, the slip had to be sent across to the account provider for charging the customer correctly and for transferring the amount into the account of the merchant.

The above mentioned procedure was error prone since there is no guarantee that all the details taken down were free of any errors since it was done by an individual. Even if a single digit is written incorrectly or if the writing is not clear, the bill becomes incorrect and it can result in an incorrect transaction.

The natural solution for the problem is the automation of the whole process. Thus credit card imprinters came into use. This reduced the errors and it works like this – the merchants keep a metal plate at the imprinter’s bottom. The account details of the merchant were found on this metal plate in the form of raised letters. The credit card of the customer is also kept at the imprinter’s bottom close to the plate of the merchant.

A sales slip which is pre-printed is kept over the plate and the card. The information that is needed for a transaction except for the credit card related information and the information related to the merchant is present in the sales slip. The merchant slides the roller on the slip; the imprinter and the roller are attached. The slip is pressed onto the credit card’s raised letters and the merchant plate for recording the account information. The only details that need manual filling are amount of transaction, contact details and sign of the customer.

Nowadays, credit cards have magnetic strips containing data that is encoded digitally. This facilitates electronic recording of the transactions. At the first thought, it seems like credit card imprinters are no longer needed. But in reality this is not true. Whenever the system of the merchant is down or when the business of the merchant is at an area that does not have continuous power supply, presence of an imprinter is needed.

Anyway, manual imprinters were time consuming and transfer does not happen in an instant since the slips had to be mailed to the bank. But since transactions are deposited electronically these days, approvals have become instant. Electronic authorization use voice authorization for large transactions to speed up the process of waiting.

POS or Point of sale terminals entered the market during 1979 with VISA introducing the electronic terminal. This made the whole process much faster. After that, several smart terminals were introduced into the market in the following years thus revolutionising card processing.