Tailwind Solutions is a Scottish based company specialising in retail Point of Sale (POS) and with particular expertise in the card payments market. Its founders, Garry Knox and Mark Stewart previously held senior executive positions with world-leading card payment equipment provider Ingenico where Garry headed up Product Marketing for the Northern European territory and Mark was Head of Retail Sales and Business Development. Together they have close to forty years experience in the card payments industry – technical, marketing, sales, business development and management.
On setting up Tailwind, Garry and Mark were determined to take a different approach to addressing the needs of the retail market. Their vision was to provide revolutionary point of sale solutions that allowed retailers to address new market requirements but at the same time retain their investment in existing technology - a refreshing approach to that of vendors that continually encourage the churn of installed equipment.
With this vision in mind, the “POS Paddle” philosophy started to take shape – one which addressed needs of those retailers that had been left up the proverbial creek by their POS equipment providers. Tailwind developed two new POS solutions that addressed top of mind issues with retailers – firstly, the protection of EMV Chip & PIN devices against theft and subsequent card fraud and secondly, the need to upgrade payment equipment to accept contactless card technology.
The theft of PIN Entry Devices (PEDs) by organised criminals is a rapidly growing industry issue. The perceived easy money from subsequent Card Fraud will be an ongoing temptation for thieves and this issue will not go away any time soon. The SafeBase product from Tailwind is aimed to remove this threat by physically securing the Chip & PIN device to the counter top. The universal design of SafeBase means that it supports PINPads and Payment Terminals from all leading suppliers – Ingenico, Verifone, Hypercom, Sagem and Gemalto.
The Tap-It solution from Tailwind allows retailers to upgrade their existing Card Payment Devices to accept Contactless Payment Cards or NFC enabled mobile phones. There is no need for the merchant to replace the existing Chip & PIN device, but instead, the current EFTPoS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale) equipment investment can be retained with the addition of the Tap-It module. This provides a superior solution to installing new Integrated Contactless Terminals and an alternative to Stand Alone contactless card readers.
The AdCard wrap around promotions card allows retailers to advertise their products and services at the Point of Sale – an ideal advertising medium. This simple solution has fuelled many new and innovative business models from simple advertising based revenue share to incorporation of NFC / RFID Tags for Loyalty schemes, eVouchers and eCoupon collection & redemption.
Tailwind continues to innovate with the same “Retailer First” philosophy and new technology modules are being developed to continue to allow retailers to continue to use their current equipment and add simple upgrades to address new technology needs. Tailwind’s new FirstBase mounting solution and ViewGuard module are typical examples of this.
The uptake of Tailwind’s product set has been phenomenal. Within a year of production parts being available, Tailwind was shipping thousands of units from their base in Scotland to a world-wide audience.
Tailwind operates a strict Channel Partner model and is rapidly signing up new partners across the globe to promote and distribute its products. To be eligible as a Tailwind partner you must have an established geographic presence with a respected place in the retail Point of Sale market. If you meet these criteria, then please contact us.