HS-Soft AG, the Swiss software and till systems provider for bakeries, patisseries and confectioners, has selected Munich-based FinTech Rubean AG as its SoftPOS partner, with the goal of replacing traditional card readers by integrating payment acceptance into modern till systems. The announcement, reported via NEWMEDIAWIRE, covers local card systems such as girocard alongside Mastercard and Visa.
The significance for the bakery sector lies in the physical setup of the checkout. HS-Soft has spent 39 years building a position as market leader for bakery till systems in the DACH region and currently serves more than 700 businesses with over 4,000 till stations. Those counters have typically run two separate devices side by side, each with its own cabling, contract and maintenance requirements.
Heiner Schriever, founder and CEO of HS-Soft, framed the change in operational terms. At many bakery counters today, he said, the till and the card terminal sit next to each other, each with its own cable, its own contract and its own maintenance. With Rubean, he said, the terminal becomes an app on the till: one less device, lower costs, and every new till can accept cards straight away without a separate terminal having to be delivered and set up first. Customers simply hold their card or mobile phone up to the till screen, which also displays their shopping, a process Schriever described as quick even when the morning queue stretches to the door.
For merchants, the implications extend beyond counter space. Dropping a dedicated terminal removes a separate device lifecycle, a separate service arrangement and the lead time involved in provisioning new payment hardware when a till is installed or replaced. Because card acceptance becomes software on equipment the bakery already operates, newly deployed tills can take payments immediately rather than waiting for terminal delivery and setup.
For Rubean, the deal places its payment platform inside an established distribution channel serving a defined niche. Stephan Kück, co-CEO of Rubean, said the two companies are together creating a new checkout experience for bakeries and their customers. Rubean AG, headquartered in Munich, has developed a payment platform that lets merchants, partners and integrators accept card payments on mobile devices through its SoftPOS app. The company says the platform allows banks and acquirers to use local and global card systems along with enterprise applications and value-added services, with high availability, scalability and security. After years of investment in research and development, Rubean states its solution is in daily use in large-scale deployments and is now entering a phase of development and scaling.
The partnership also signals where payment acceptance is heading in small-format retail. Rather than adding hardware, software vendors can absorb card processing into the systems merchants already use to ring up sales, narrowing the number of suppliers and contracts a shop owner must manage. More details on Rubean's platform are available at www.rubean.com, and the original release can be viewed at www.newmediawire.com.
