Mobile payments launched in the U.K. by iZettle

The system implemented by the Swedish company has been compared to Square in the U.S.

iZettle, a company from Sweden, has just announced that it has launched a mobile payments service similar to Square in the United Kingdom, and that it has now gone live for merchants to use.

The service works with an app and reader device that plugs into a tablet or smartphone.

iZettle is considered to be the main rival to Square in Europe as it expands into its second marketplace within the same number of weeks. This new mobile payments service will allow small and medium sized businesses to complete transactions from customers through the use of a reader device that is connected to the merchant’s smartphone or tablet. This eliminates the need for a PIN and chip device and a business bank account.

The mobile payments service was launched in Germany last week and is now in the United Kingdom.

The reader device and app works with both iOS and Android devices by clipping into the audio jack of the smartphone or tablet. This allows mobile payments to be accepted through a consumer’s American Express, Visa, MasterCard, or Diners Club card. The purchase is verified when the customer uses a stylus or a finger to sign the signature pad on the touch-screen of the device.

From that point, the transaction is processed by iZettle, and the customer is emailed a receipt if that is his or her preference. A mobile payments report will also be built and provided to the merchant.

iZettle is similar to Square in that it allows a similar form of transaction and it takes a per-transaction cut of 2.75 percent. These two services are dissimilar, though, in that iZettle does not offer an option that allows merchants to pay a flat fee for the services.

The company has been testing the mobile payments services through a pilot program in the United Kingdom over the last four months. This helped them to determine that although customers preferred chip and PIN (instead of chip and signature) methods in the U.K. when making traditional credit card purchases, they preferred the signature method to entering their PIN when it came to completing a transaction over another person or company’s smartphone or tablet.

Leave a Comment


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.