The plan to seamlessly connect cash registers with Point of Sales (POS) devices has entered its final phase, as authorities along with businesses collaborated in a trial period last week to ascertain the integration between POS systems and specific cash registers.

Specifically, POS providers are conducting tests to ensure smooth integration between the various terminals and cash registers circulating in the market. The tests will continue and intensify in the coming weeks to resolve issues and possible malfunctions promptly. According to the timetable set by the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE), everything should be ready by the end of February.

From March 1st, if all goes as planned, the keyboards of POS systems will be “locked.” This implies that Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) POS terminals will no longer operate independently for debit transactions. In other words, manually entering the payment amount on the POS will be prohibited. Instead, the amount will be retrieved from the cash register.

With the integration of cash registers and POS, the verification process will unfold as follows:

The transaction begins with the Fiscal Cash Register (FΗΜ) for retail transactions. The operator (employee or store manager) selects “payment by card,” and the FΗΜ sends a relevant request to the EFT/POS payment system.

The EFT/POS system automatically confirms the receipt of the request to the fiscal mechanism, putting it on hold for the result.

The POS connects to the payment service provider (bank or equivalent payment service) and receives information about whether there was: (a) online approval, (b) offline approval, (c) offline rejection, or (d) transaction interruption.