Introduction

Many organisations need to charge for a service or product without the need for cashier being present, and without a cash-box at every point of sale (POS).

In the absence of a true electronic replacement for money, this leaves three options:

• token-based solution
• credit-based solution
• on-line accounting

Each of these solutions has costs and benefits:

Debit-based solution

Real money is worth stealing, because it can be used anywhere. Substituting tokens for cash can overcome this but only to a limited extent. Stolen tokens can only be used within the organisation that issued them, but that still makes them useful. And, cash-boxes have to be emptied regularly or else the theft risk increases as the amount in the cashbox increases.

The solution to all of these problems is electronic tokens; usually a card with tokens stored on it. Cards can be sold with value already on them and discarded when empty, or they can be re-loaded with additional either by the holder or by a cashier. Allowing the card holder to re-load the card usually requires equipment with a cash-box, which is itself a risk, but can usually be located in a supervised area. Also, because fewer value-loaders than point-of-sale equipment are required, the risk is reduced and the cost of high-security POS equipment is avoided.

The risk of stolen cards can be reduced by requiring a personal identification number (PIN) to be entered each time the card is used.

Credit-based solutions

Where people can be trusted to settle their debts, it is sufficient to record the debt.

On-line accounting

Rather than storing value on a card, value can be stored in a database. POS equipment then reduces the value in the database when required.

Equipment

Revenue control equipment has two main tasks to perform:

• to prevent the controlled device being used unless allowed to
• to monitor the use of the controlled device, and charge accordingly

Revenue control equipment is usually specifically designed for the type of device it has to control, not only for ergonomic reasons but also because of the widely different  interfaces available on different types of device.

Ancillary equipment may be required to sell cards, and to re-load value onto cards.

TDSi has two ranges of products: F1000 (credit-based) and F2000 (debit-based)