Automating Credit Card Swipe w/ POS device

We are testing a POS application. A major part of our testing is to physically swipe a card (gift cards, credit cards, etc) into our hand held devices. We test our software with the Verifone device

We find that automating the card swipe is very difficult. Just checking, does anyone have any experience or suggestions about how we can automate the card swipe actions or any simulators available for the Verifone device?

Payment authorization is from Fipay system. It seems there is some kind of Simulator available for Fipay. But Fipay is sending back 'Amount verification (YES/NO) ' back to Verifone, which we are not able to handle

Thanks in advance