Payment Technology

MDB

Term from the vending glossary

Multi-Drop Bus — the long-established standard bus between vending-machine controller and peripherals such as coin changers, banknote readers and card terminals.

MDB was developed in the 1980s by NACS (National Automatic Merchandising Association) and is today part of the international standard ANSI/NACS. The protocol operates with one master (vending machine) and up to 31 slaves (peripheral devices) on a serial 9600-baud bus. Transactions are processed in 6-ms cycles.

For operators, MDB means: nearly every device—from coin changers to cashless terminals—can be combined in a vendor-agnostic manner. The latest version MDB 4.3 (2018) extends the protocol with cashless commands and multi-vend support for combination machines.

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Technische Standards: MDB, EPS, EVA-DTS

Sources & further reading

Related terms

MDB 4.3Current MDB protocol version (2018) with native cashless support, NFC, and mobile payment. De facto standard in European vending operations.Coin changerPayment module that validates coins, accepts them, and dispenses change. Typically connected to the machine controller via MDB.CashlessCashless payment at vending machines via girocard, credit card, NFC, mobile payment or employee ID. Reduces cash handling and vandalism risk.EVA-DTSEuropean Vending Association Data Transfer Standard — defines how sales and audit data are read from the vending machine. Current version: 6.2.

More terms from Payment Technology

Multi-Price System NFC Executive protocol Closed-Loop-System Prepaid Account Open-Loop Payment Dynamic Pricing EPS v2 (Electronic Payment Specification): Contactless payment standard for vending machines

All terms