Vending Machines Going Cashless

Forget the nickels! Cashless payments may be coming soon to a vending machine near you. The majority of vending machine operators plan to add credit or debit card swipers to their machines in 2011, according to a study by Apriva, a company that sells wireless transaction services to the industry.

About 57 percent of companies surveyed said they planned to expand the number of their machines outfitted with card swipers.

“It appears that the vending community is approaching critical mass in terms of adopting cashless technology,” Stacey Finley Tappin, vice president of sales for Apriva, said in a press release.

Going cashless costs between $400 and $600 per machine, according to a story by PaymentsSource.com. That includes the card reader and a data port that sends and receives credit and debit card information.

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Image: Russell Bernice, via Flickr.com