Mobile payments without the stress

Wednesday 4th January 2012

Mobile payments without the stress

After recent requests from Clients wanting to handle instant card payments, which don’t rely on copying someone’s credit or debit card details into an application, we’ve been scouring the market for a solution. Fortunately a couple of hopefuls, namely ‘Square’ and ‘iZettle’ have caught our eye.

 

The first, Square, is two years old and is already processing transactions of $2 billion annually in the US. Square’s founder, Jack Dorsey, who also founded Twitter, has suggested the card reader is likely to arrive in the UK later this year. Richard Branson is also recently onboard, announcing a personal investment towards the end of last year.

 

The second system we’ve been eyeing up is iZettle. The iZettler team are currently testing their product in Sweden and are aiming to launch into more European markets later this year.

 

The main difference between the two systems is that iZettle includes a microchip card reader, whereas Square only swipes the credit card through a magnetic strip. This will mean that the iZettle process is likely to be similar to the current chip and pin terminals we are all used to using.

 

Both systems currently charge a fixed fee per transaction as well as a percentage of the transaction amount but the hardware is free. We will continue looking at both systems and will aim to integrate our preferred choice into our iOS data capture software.

 

So the race is on, who will debut in the UK first? We will keep you posted.