Jumping into a taxicab only to realise you don?t have any cash to pay the fare may soon no longer be a problem.

Cable & Wireless? roll out of a new mobile unit that allows credit card transactions to be processed from virtually anywhere around the Island ? even on the road, brings Bermuda one step closer to becoming a cashless society.

The point-of-sale product ? called Retail 1 ? allows for merchants to process credit cards over an Internet connection or, for the sake of mobility, over a wireless network.

The units ? small enough to fit into one?s hand ? have been on the market for about a year but the wireless capability was not introduced until now.

The development, which offers an alternative to authorising credit card purchases through a dial-up telephone system, could also save shoppers valuable time.

Lisa Fox, Cable & Wireless vice-president, product management, told The Royal Gazette in a telephone interview that a credit card transaction can, on average, be processed over an Internet connection ? either fixed or wireless ? in three seconds. Dial-up clearance for the same transaction averages 20 seconds, she said.

A diverse range of customers ? from retailers to airlines to taxi drivers and restaurants ? can benefit from using the Retail 1 product, she said.

Another boon for merchants is that the transactions can be tracked online, eliminating the hassle of waiting until the end of each month to reconcile transactions against a mailed statement.

The only prerequisite for signing up for the service is to have a merchant account with a local acquiring bank, Ms Fox said. And users don?t have to be subscribers of Cable & Wireless? Internet service, which it is licensed to offer to corporate customers.

Each unit can be rented from Cable & Wireless for $60 a month, and the telecoms company said it was the only Bermuda provider of this kind of product.

Under the same programme, Cable & Wireless also offers its corporate customers an e-Commerce platform to allow for credit card transaction processing online. One of the Island?s domestic insurance companies is already using the system, allowing it to process multi-currency transactions in its Bermuda and Caribbean operations.

Government, which is the largest customer of Cable & Wireless Bermuda?s e-Commerce offerings, is also to expand its use of the system to allow for customers to pay fees and fines online.

Ms Fox said the product could also prove valuable to the reinsurance sector because it would allow the companies to process transactions, and hold the funds, here in Bermuda where they are based.