Hypercom Cooks Up Payment Solutions For Drive-Thrus

While a new burger or salad might give consumers reason to look twice at outside menus, the real eye-catcher could be something inedible: a credit-card reader.

Among the 10 top quick service restaurants, or QSRs, there are currently 250,000 "lanes of opportunity" for card-reader deployment, said a spokesman for POS vendor Hypercom. Four of those, including McDonald's and Burger King, have already issued requests for proposal, he said.

As these technologies gain traction at QSRs around the country, solution providers may want to step in and enhance outdoor payment systems further by adding loyalty and gift card applications, the spokesman said.

Last September, Hypercom demonstrated its latest POS technology for the QSR market at an Electronic Transaction Association conference in Seattle.

One new product, the HFT 500, is a ruggedized, high-security device that can be built into or placed next to a merchant's outdoor menu board and connected directly to the in-store cash register, said sources at Hypercom.

Payment transactions can be handled by the in-store system or transmitted from the terminal to an out-of-house transaction processor for quick authorization.

"Consumers want to pay for their purchases quickly but don't want to sacrifice quality service," said Paul Martaus, an analyst at research firm Martaus and Associates. "The electronic payment industry is taking note, and Hypercom is moving fast to help quick-service merchants address the issue with smart, secure, high-speed technology."

Phoenix-based Hypercom has installed three of its HFT 500 terminals at McDonald's locations on Long Island, N.Y., the spokesman said. Within the next month or so, the vendor plans to deploy one of those devices at a McDonald's in Puerto Rico and one at a Burger King in Atlanta, he added.

Hypercom also unveiled HyperPass, a miniature key fob that consumers can wave in front of the vendor's ICE 5500Plus and 5700Plus card terminals.