TSYS launches Vital POS, challenging Square, Stripe

Dive Brief:

TSYS earlier this month launched several Vital-branded payment products, including a cloud-based point of sale suite, aimed at small- and medium-sized merchants, according to a company press release.
The Vital POS line-up includes Vital Mobile, which has an EMV card reader and runs on a business owner’s mobile phone or tablet; Vital Plus, aimed more at merchants looking to replace countertop payment terminals and electronic cash registers; and Vital Select, a full-featured POS system with discount, pricing and inventory management support appropriate for retailers with one or more brick-and-mortar locations.
The company said the Vital POS offering, which also can be white-labeled for partners, uses technology and other assets that TSYS purchased as part of its acquisition of iMobile3, a deal announced in June.

Dive Insight:

With its new POS product family, TSYS aims to capture more of the small- and medium-sized merchant market for payment processing solutions, which means it is also taking direct aim at the likes of Square, Poynt, Stripe, First Data and others that saw opportunity in this segment of the market early on.

Square may be feeling the heat, as it too has come out with a flurry of announcements in recent months suggesting that it is upping its game in a variety of areas. Last October, for example, Square launched the portable Square Terminal as a potential replacement for traditional keypad-driven credit card processing machines. Earlier this month, Square also announced a software development kit that helps developers and merchants process in-app payments, clear moves to offer new payment tools on both the physical and digital fronts.

Other payment processing firms also are arming themselves for what could be a heated battle in an increasingly competitive market. Poynt, for example, which was founded by a former Google executive, raised about $100 million in funding late last year. Meanwhile, Fiserv is in the process of acquiring First Data for about $22 billion, a move that will expand the reach of First Data’s Clover POS platform while also signaling that the crowded market may have to consolidate some to move forward.

TSYS believes it can go toe-to-toe with the rest of this crowd, but there are risks. TSYS will need to prove that Vital POS delivers something better or different than the throng of other competing products. Yet, right now, with digital and mobile payments growing, and even long-time holdouts like Target accepting Apple Pay, Google Pay and other alternative payment methods, perhaps there is room for everyone who can process a buck to make one.