Last October I mentioned the Square iPhone payment system, a new start up business from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. In December they started a live customer trial and they recently announced that they are taking signups for their pilot programme.

Square allows anyone with a mobile device (currently only iPhone and the iPod touch are supported) and the square dongle to accept credit card payments. The square dongle is a small magnetic reader that plugs into the headphone jack of the mobile device. Once a card is swiped the dongle reads the card and converts the data to an audio signal. This audio signal is then picked up by the microphone and routed to the square software. From here the data is encrypted and sent the the payment network for approval. Instant confirmation of the payment is displayed on the device and also sent to both parties via SMS or email. The following video from Square gives an introduction to the system.



The video highlights what I feel are the two most important selling points of the square system:

Target Audience - it is aimed at both merchants and consumers, anyone can accept payments.

Simplicity - Easy to setup, there are no contracts, no monthly fees and you can start accepting payments immediately.

It is still early days for SquareUp but if they can live up to the claims on their website and in the video above then I expect they will present a challenge to the major players in mobile and online payments.

Dave

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• Word on the Web - 23/10/2009
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Ryanair charge a €5 payment fee per person per flight when you book on their website. They only way to avoid this charge was to pay with Visa Electron. This card type was their free payment method offering. Ryanair  have now dropped Visa Electron in favor of prepaid Mastercards. There are currently no free-to-use prepaid MasterCards so anyone buying a Ryanair flight now will include some type of card payment


Moneybookers following in the footsteps of PayPal have launched a new MasterCard-branded prepaid card. The card will allow customers to access funds in their Moneybookers e-wallet to shop both online and offline. The card also offers parents the possibility to load money on a card for their children.


eBay are predicting that next Monday 7th December will be Irelands busiest online shopping day, with a massive 112,000 people expected to log onto ebay.ie. Based on their research they expect that next Monday a Christmas present will be bought every 30 seconds on ebay.ie.



In our Word on the Web post for 23/10/2009 we mentioned the SquareUp the new business from Twitter founder Jack Doresy. SquareUp has now gone live for trial customers. SquareUp does not require any contracts or monthly fees and card payments can be accepted through a device that connects through the audio jack. Receipts can be sent via email or viewed online.

Dave

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If you liked this article then you can:

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Related Blog Posts:

• Word on the Web - 22/11/2009
• Word on the Web - 03/11/2009
• Word on the Web - 13/10/2009