What do we call the machine used in shops through which we swipe our Debit/Credit card to pay for something?

Solution 1:

In the industry that I had worked in, we call it magnetic strip reader, or magnetic strip card reader.

But lay-customers call it card reader or magnetic card reader.

But apparently, the official technology name is called magnetic stripe reader or magnetic stripe card reader. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_stripe_card.

Solution 2:

The simplest, most generic phrasings I can find would be point of sale terminal, payment terminal or if you want to be slightly more specific electronic payment terminal. These emphasise the location or purpose of the item as well as the kind of technology (They are not fancy computers, but rather end-points that tell faster computers how to run the transactions)

Calling it a magnetic stripe reader becomes inaccurate when you take into account smart cards that use a chip rather than a magnetic stripe, and EFTPOS terminal, while being more accurate, is a more of a technical term that people may not understand.

Solution 3:

While magnetic stripe card reader is an appropriate term for a generic card reader used elsewhere (such as in door locks or employee attendance clocks), the machines used at point of sale have a more specific name (which is rather popular in Australia and NZ, but I'm not sure about other countries, even though the name originated in US and is generic enough): EFTPOS terminal.

EFTPOS stands for "electronic funds transfer at point of sale".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eftpos