Tuesday, February 15, 2022
In this interview, Steve Taylor, CEO at Taylor POS Dismount Stands and Mounts, shares information about the upcoming changes and their potential impact on payments industry stakeholders.
Why is this law important and how will it impact the merchant community?
New Federal requirements are coming fast, creating the biggest POS card reader mounting refresh in the history of stands and mounts across attended and unattended environments. This is really a global uniformity measure for POS card reader mounting to be accommodating for all people.
Currently, POS mounting stand guidelines lack the uniformity of ADA requirements for other physical infrastructures, such as accessible parking and restrooms. The U.S. Access-Board 508 Information Communication Technologies and ADA.gov will be proposing clear new technical standards for POS stands and mounting requirements that can no longer be misinterpreted.
What aspects of the current guidelines are subject to misinterpretation?
Reach and range alone do not make stands and mounts accessible and never have; this is why the U.S. Access-Board is addressing new technical standards for all POS mounting in both attended and unattended environments. It's also crucial for merchants and POS terminal manufacturers to understand that typical release or quick releases are not ADA acceptable.
This is what is happening for the mounting for POS card readers regardless of how a countertop is built or positioned and the same for the unattended POS including kiosk with POS, ATMs, and even at-the-pump and other enclosures with POS devices.
Ideally, accessible dismounts must provide inclusivity, be independently accessible and self-assistive and shield PIN entry from view at any angle, even when a PIN pad is on someone's lap. The screens themselves must be clearly visible and provide privacy while in use.
For example, Taylor Stands uses ADA 309 Operable part U—Shape Handle and ADA Operation 309.4. Our patented technology features one-hand operable, no pinching, grasping, twisting of the wrist and TUG/Pull of under five pounds to meet the weight restriction requirement.
What is notably different about the updated ADA compliance guidelines?
First, I would say clarity. Merchants, from small and midsize business owners to big box brands, are told many different things when it comes to ADA. SMBs are hardly ever educated on requirements and ISOs, MSPs, POS distributors and terminal manufacturers have no ADA experts that we have ever seen in our 22 years in the payments industry and seven years of direct ADA studies.
The new guidelines stipulate the following requirements for POS device accessibility:
Most merchants also do not understand the rules being implemented including PCI-PTS, which PCI adopted from ISO regarding safe PIN entry shielding (using hands and/or body for PIN shielding). To be very specific, the verbiage reads as follows:
Accessibility Guidelines for Self-Service Transaction Machines
The rulemaking would amend the Access Board's existing accessibility guidelines for buildings and facilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Architectural Barriers Act (ABA), located at 36 CFR part 1191, to include guidelines for the accessibility of fixed self-service transaction machines, self-service kiosks, information transaction machines, and point-of-sale devices.
The U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Justice are expected, via separate rulemakings, to adopt these amended guidelines as enforceable standards for devices and equipment covered by the ADA.
When the new guidelines go into effect?
These changes will be implemented in stages, beginning in April 2022, from Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for public comment, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for comment, followed final rule as technical standards, with DOJ and ADA adoption for enforcement.
What steps can service providers (ISOs, MSPs,) take to ensure their merchant customers are ADA compliant?
We strongly recommend is that merchants, the payments industry—ISOs MSPs, POS manufacturers—address this right away to get the jump. This is something they do not want to ignore. Our USIDC team has actively been working very closely together for over a year now in preparation for this change (see www.taylorpos.com).
Keep in mind, if a place of business has accessible parking (or) not, they will have to have accessible lap stands and mounts. This applies to attended and unattended POS solutions. 
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