SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY : 2 Firms Working on System to Speed Credit-Card Sales

Credit card purchases could soon take less time than cash transactions as a result of an agreement signed recently between two Irvine companies.

Trintech USA, a start-up subsidiary of Trintech International of Dublin, Ireland, and CUE Network Corp., a paging company, have agreed to establish a data transmission system they say will allow instantaneous verification for credit-card purchases.

With the credit-card verification procedure most retailers use, a clerk runs a customer’s card through a point-of-sale machine. The machine dials a central computer, often at a bank, that contains a list of all bad credit cards. Next, a computer checks whether the customer’s card is otherwise valid and whether the transaction is permitted, and it then notifies the point-of-sale machine with a verification or a rejection.

The whole process takes about 15 seconds, most of which is the time involved in setting up the phone call to the central computer. During the holiday shopping season, the transaction can take longer because many more retailers will be using the verification system.

Trintech USA’s Xchecker point-of-sale system, now in the testing phase, will eliminate the need for the phone call and reduce the time needed for credit card verification to a few seconds, said Gene Swanzy, chairman and chief executive.

CUE will supply the radio communications link that will allow banks to store the computerized list of roughly 500,000 invalid cards in Trintech’s point-of-sale machines. Using CUE’s radio paging technology, the database can be sent to the machines and updated daily, said Leo Jedynak, CUE vice president of product development.

Swanzy said the system should lower retailers’ costs by providing faster access to credit information and by reducing staffing and telephone expenses.

The point-of-sale terminals, which were developed in the United Kingdom by Trintech’s parent company, will be manufactured for Trintech by a Finnish company, Swanzy said. Initial tests will verify MasterCard transactions.

With speedier verification, Jedynak hopes that the new verification system will encourage the use of credit cards for small sales such as meals at McDonald’s and movie tickets.

“Since cash transactions often involve giving change, we can make using credit cards more convenient than cash,” Jedynak said.