Credit Card Management: Fast food meets fast payment

Linda Punch and Jeffrey Green report on quick service restaurants and their increasing acceptance of card payments.

Perhaps the most important obstacle overcome by the card industry was the time it takes to process a card transaction. „First and foremost, the through-put of the transaction was probably the biggest concern that merchants had in the QSR segment,‰ Gore says. „Obviously, that‚s critical to their livelihood. They can‚t afford any type of delay whatsoever in terms of getting that transaction through, expedited and get the next customer up in line.‰ To that end, fast-food restaurants are beginning to adopt the point-of-sale technology originally developed to speed processing of transactions for supermarkets and gas stations‚ pay-at-the-pump programs.