Diebold Rolls Out Contactless Retail Checkout

As the NRF is rocking and rolling in NYC this week, Diebold — a firm best known for its work in ATMs — will be bringing forward a new idea for retail checkouts that just might be the literal end of the line for the traditional POS.

The new checkout concept allows retail customers to essentially use their phones as a scanner as they travel through a retail location — scanning items into their digital shopping carts as they drop them into their real physical ones. Once they are done, instead of queuing up at the front of the store, the consumer can instead tap their phone at the self-checkout unit and be done. Payment is made via preloaded card information in the consumer’s digital wallet within the retailer’s app or through good, old-fashioned cash slipped into the terminal.

“As a proven leader in delivering financial service solutions to top retailers, we see many similarities between the worlds of banking and retail. Our omnichannel expertise has enabled us to reimagine the use of our fast, secure ATM technology to power the new, mobile-enabled self-checkout,” said Frank Natoli, Diebold executive vice president of self-service technology. “A convergence of the ATM, self-checkout and mobile would not only deliver speed and convenience to consumers but also standardizes all cash handling into a single automated experience.”