Well, it finally happened. I broke a Square Card Reader.
Square Card Reader app gets new icon and now accepts Discover Card.
Square Card Reader has just been updated with new icon.
In addition to that Square now accepts Discover Card.
UI Glitch.
Point Zero Five Percent
PayPal Here™ charges 2.7% per transaction, 0.05% less than Square. Paypal also touting same day funds availability using PayPal merchant debit card and live customer support. PayPal Here™ works with Android and iOS.
UPDATE:
PayPal Here™ takes Discover unlike Square and the future.
According to The Verge, PayPal Here™ doesn’t have iPad optimized app yet as opposed to the newly released Square Register.
There are a lot of people who had been burned by PayPal and will not touch PayPal Here™ with a ten-foot pole.
Disclaimer: We use Square.
All Squared Up.
If you own a small business and you want to accept card card as payment then it couldn’t be any easier these days.
About a week before Christmas 2011, I helped setting up credit card payment system using Square for a small bakery in the Long Beach, California. All they need are: a wireless access point, an iPod touch and Square card reader. In addition to that, they are also accepting card payment at farmers market in Long Beach, Culver City and Pasadena. According to the bakery owner, they are gaining new customers by simply accepting card payment.
The next project is to redesign Sconeage Bakery website.
Squared Up.
I’ve just finished setting up payment system for a local bakery using an iPod touch and Square. It is a small bakery that sells cookies, coffee and waffles. From time to time customers came in and asked if they could pay using credit card. Now they can take credit card.
The Spat between Verifone and Square.
Disclaimer:
We here at 37′ are using Square to take credit card payment. We have recommended Square to others over Intuit GoPayment. We have not considered using VeriFone in the past.
VeriFone fired the first salvo (www.sq-skim.com):
Today is a wake-up call to consumers and the payments industry. Last year, a start-up named Square introduced a credit card reader for smartphones with the goal of making it very easy for anyone to accept credit cards through a mobile device. Seems like a great idea, but there is a serious security flaw that Square has overlooked that places consumers in dire risk.
…….
The issue is that Square’s hardware is poorly constructed and lacks all ability to encrypt consumers’ data, creating a window for criminals to turn the device into a skimming machine in a matter of minutes.
…….
We call on Square to do the responsible thing and recall these card skimming devices from the market.
Douglas G. Bergeron
Chief Executive Officer
VeriFone is “concerned” that Square card reader does not encrypt the information it reads from credit card magnetic stripe. According to VeriFone, anyone can write some an app that utilize Square credit card reader and using it to capture all information from credit card magnetic stripe. In essence Verifone is calling out Square for providing a credit card reader that can be used for criminal purposes.
For some reasons, it reminds me of HDCP compliant scheme. For example, multimedia signals must be encrypted from the Blu-ray Disc to Blu-ray player to the HDMI cable to receiver to the display. Well at least that’s what Verifone wants us to believe.
Unlike Blu-ray Disc, a credit card is not encrypted. Not in the magnetic stripe, and not on the card itself. All the information about the credit card is visible on the card itself. Credit Card number, account holder name, expiration date and raise-printed on the card. The CSV code is printed on the signature field. Anyone can easily copy the informations.
Today one of our competitors alleged that the Square card reader is insecure. This is not a fair or accurate claim and it overlooks all of the protections already built into your credit card.
Any technology—an encrypted card reader, phone camera, or plain old pen and paper—can be used to “skim” or copy numbers from a credit card. The waiter you hand your credit card to at a restaurant, for example, could easily steal your card details if he wanted to—no technology required. If you provide your credit card to someone who intends to steal from you, they already have everything they need: the information on the front of your card.
Some say that VeriFone sees Square as a threat; John Gruber nicely summarized:
VeriFone’s FUD attack on Square didn’t happen until after Square reduced its fees to well below VeriFone’s rates.
If somehow Square are “recalling” the current credit card readers and replacing them with the encrypted ones, would VeriFone be satisfied?
Is VeriFone, a $4.2b company threatend by Square, a company with $37.5 million in startup funding? (Dollar figure is from TUAW)
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VeriFone Payware Mobile is available for iOS devices.