Your Shout: Doug Hargrove, Anker Systems

Hospitality companies are likely to lose out as the January 2005 deadline approaches for the new chip-and-PIN payments - banks have forced the industry down a

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route that will severely constrain operators' ability to offer the most basic services from tabs to table payment. Setting up tabs or table-based payments, even using a card to guarantee hotel payment at check-in, are standard practices that will be effected by the introduction of chip-and-PIN, designed to reduce the incidence of credit card fraud. And any organisation hoping to take the standard bank-placed terminal should think again - limited functionality not only prevents the use of tabs but also opens up new opportunities for internal fraud. Another concern is gratuities.Any service charge will have to added before presenting the customer with the bill. This could cause significant problems, with bills being rejected by customers unhappy with the service charge, or waiting staff losing out on the accepted perk of the job. The major card franchisors have agreed that, from January 2005, any non compliant operators will be liable for pay recompense for any card fraud suffered by their customers, and its likely that fraudsters will targer non-compliant hospitality outlets. The industry's slow introduction of chip-and-PIN is no surprise, as the technology vendors have been focusing on the retail market, but the deadline is fast approaching and no workable option is in place. Hospitality companies have less than four months to achieve compliance - and at this rate most will be forced to use the bank-placed terminals simply to avoid fraud liability. Yet this can only undermine the quality of customer service. Unless the hospitality industry gets its act together, the only beneficiaries of this new iniative will be the banks.