Earnings Season Points to Point of Sale’s Evolution Beyond the Cash Register

Beyond the volatility of trade wars and tariffs, and whether consumers are shifting their spending, the fact remains that how and where they pay is changing.

PYMNTS Intelligence has spotlighted the rise of the “Click-and-Mortar” shopper. Across the globe, nearly 14,000 consumers told us that in-store commerce still is a vital component of everyday commercial life. And 71% of shoppers find the physical store central to their shopping experience. But they increasingly have become comfortable with digital, flexible means of paying in all manner of face-to-face settings, including retail establishments and restaurants.

The impulse buy, the browsing the aisles and grabbing what one needs is made easier as merchants reconsider just where the sale happens; the point of sale is no longer fixed to a counter, via cash register at the front of the store.

As earnings season and recent announcements have highlighted, and will continue to highlight, point-of-sale (POS) technology has been evolving to support the aspiration that commerce can happen pretty much anywhere on the premises, in the aisle or at the table (and with no cash changing hands).

Handheld devices and tablets, even smartphones, become the conduits of data that, in turn, offer embedded financing and a broad range of payment options that can boost sales conversions and also encourage repeat business. Our data have shown that 80% of consumers want to use their preferred payment options, with installment and buy now, pay later (BNPL) choices top of mind.

The Technological Advances

Separate PYMNTS Intelligence research in tandem with Discover Global Network has found that SoftPOS, which enables tap-on-mobile and tap-to-pay options, has been in high demand.

Fiserv’s most recent earnings report this week indicates that (significant) growth is still in the cards over the long term for POS, especially for smaller merchants. Management detailed on the most recent earnings call that through the past few months Clover has been rolled out in Mexico, Brazil, Australia and Singapore, and entering Belgium through the CCV deal. The total number of “Clover countries” stands at 13, management said on the call.

In a nod to the preferred payment options valued by consumers, the company also struck a pact this past quarter through which Klarna’s BNPL options will be embedded on Clover devices in the United States, rolling out to 100,000 merchant locations. The company will also be debuting Clover Hospitality next month, for upper-scale restaurants.

Mike Lyons, CEO-elect of Fiserv, said on the call, “Our pipeline is strong, and we expect to meaningfully outpace that number in 2025 driven by financial institutions’ desire to win in the small business space by using Clover and our broader SMB suite.”

Clover’s revenues grew by 27% year over year in the most recent quarter and annualized payments growth was up 8%. Per CFO Bob Hau, “We remain on track to achieve our targets of $3.5 billion in revenue for Clover.”

Elsewhere, we’ll know more about the state of POS when Square and Toast report results on their own POS operations as earnings season winds on. Recent product announcements will continue to boost momentum in upgrades and new use cases leveraging smaller POS form factors.

Toast, for example, said that it is branching out more fully into retail (and beyond restaurants), as management said on the fourth-quarter earnings call that it was building teams geared toward those segments. As detailed here earlier this year, Toast Retail has tools in place for a faster checkout experience, and also harnesses data for better inventory management.

And just this week, Square announced that it had released the next-generation Square Point of Sale app that consolidates several of its industry-specific tools into a single, customizable platform designed to meet the needs of businesses as they change. The announcement detailed that its new app integrates functionalities previously available through separate products — such as Square for Restaurants, Square for Retail, Square Appointments and Square Invoices — into one unified system.