Growth of the mobile payments industry in Europe will lead to an increasing number of retailers adopting next generation Point of Sale (POS) solutions and an evolution to “check in” shopping, Visa Europe’s SVP of innovation and strategic partnerships said.

In a blog discussing the future of financial technology, Bill Gajda said increased adoption of mobile payments during 2016 will be followed in 2017 by an acceleration in the use of new POS systems in small and medium-sized retailers.

According to the company, many of these businesses believe they are losing footfall as a result of not being able to accept mobile payments. While Gadja expects some businesses will adopt mobile POS systems including iZettle and Square, he added there could be a move towards cloud services such as Amazon Go, which enable immediate payment when exiting the store.

“POS could disappear altogether, moving to the cloud,” Gadja wrote, adding: “Last year, Amazon announced the Amazon Go app to work with stores who implement the system. It is a prime example of one of the trends Visa has been talking about for the last year: the move from check out to check in.

“When customers shop at participating stores, they check in upon entering the store, then, as they add items to their basket, the price is added to the shoppers Amazon account and deducted when the shopper exits the store.”