Contactless bank cards

[Jon Ribbens]

On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 11:57:57AM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:
> In article <20101116163933.GL535 at snowy.squish.net>, Jon Ribbens  
> <jon+ukcrypto at unequivocal.co.uk> writes
>> Oh, well in small retailers my observation, and also as I understand
>> it, reality, is that the merchant terminal is usually not connected to
>> the till and you can put any number of transactions through without
>> the till knowing anything about it.
>
> As the terminal isn't touched by the merchant (unless it's a cordless  
> one) how do they instruct it to initiate a transaction.

My observation is that the terminal certainly is touched by the
merchant, because they press buttons on it to enter the amount to be
debited.

Yes there are also integrated tills/terminals where they just press
one button and it activates the terminal automatically, but I have
seen that more often in larger shops or chains, whereas in small
independent shops they tend to have the non-integrated type that
the bank sells/rents to you when you open your merchant account.