A payment terminal can have an application processing unit coupled to a transaction processing unit. The transaction processing unit can receive payment information from a payment device via a payment interface coupled to the transaction processing unit. The transaction processing unit can encrypt the payment information in accordance with a standard payment protocol and provide the encrypted payment information and other protocol dependent information to the application processing unit. The application processing unit can execute a point-of-sale application that can have the transaction processing unit acquire the payment information and have the application processing unit transmit the encrypted payment information and other protocol-dependent information from the transaction processing unit to a payment server.