Everything you need to know about POS in Nepal

POS is known as Point of Sale. POS is an intermediary system used to complete the online transaction between merchant and buyer. It is an electronic hardware system, where customer gets the calculated total amount of the acquired services and also have the payment system enabled into it. In Nepal also, there are many POS system utilized in shopping centers, banks, schools, grocery store and many other places.

Never be confuse that, POS is not only a ATM swapping machine seen in shopping centers but it is also a complete billing system seen like in Bhatbhateni super market as below. But particularly in this article, we will be more focused on the ATM POS.

In Nepal, commercial banks are leading in providing this system to the merchants. In figure below, we can see Sunrise bank is promoting their POS system commercially.

In this whole article we will give the insights about the history of POS in Nepal, list of companies providing POS services and how POS system works.

History of POS System:

The history of POS dates back to 1879. James Ritty, an Ohio native and saloon owner, invented the first cash register in 1879 with his brother, calling it “Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier”. This was similar like the recording the daily transaction details into register. However, the modern POS system rolls from the year 1980’s with the electronic system embedded. The primarily role of POS system on that time was working in assisting the modern inventory system. This system was the first commercial use of client-server technology, peer-to-peer communications, local area network (LAN) simultaneous backup, and remote initialization. IBM 3650 and 3660 store systems were among those ones during that time.

Later after year 1990, with flourish of internet, the POS systems were also developed by taking care of the internet. The availability of local processing power, local data storage, networking, and graphical user interface made it possible to develop flexible and highly functional POS systems. The department stores around the globe begin using the POS services. Never be confuse that POS is not only a ATM swapping system to make a transaction but also a system where the daily inventory are recorded.

From 2000 onward, the POS system went on cloud system. There will be some hardware installed on the merchant and their whole data will be on remote location connected by internet. Particularly we can call them as servers.

The ATM POS went soo dominantly in the market that more than 80% transaction in payment of the services are from ATM POS.

In Nepal also, POS system were first launched by Standard Chartered bank previously known as Grindlays Bank according to TechLekh. Report of 2018 suggest that there are more than 12,000 POS system used in Nepal. The usage is highly active in shopping centers, clothing shops, restaurants, convenience store and many more places.

POS System- cashless for digital world

POS system have become the driving force in creating the cashless digital world. People don’t need to carry the hard cash for any form of payment. Simpy, customers swap the ATM card in POS system and the payment is done in real time. In Nepal also, the usage of POS system is highly preferable in services like Bhatbhateni, Bigmart and QFX. Other areas include ticketing of airways, cinema hall, etc. The POS system have also become the first step towards digital world.