Square brings a new payment system using notebooks, iPhones, and iPods

7th December, 2009 by adina
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Electronic payment through credit cards currently requires dedicated devices and services that small businesses cannot always afford and thus lose the opportunity to sell products or services to customers who want to use this kind of payment. A new mobile payment system was unveiled by Square. This system will probably change the way customers pay at restaurants and retail. It was created by Jack Dorsey, a Twitter pioneer, and uses a little scanner attached to a notebook, iPhone or iPod through the 3.5-millimeter headphone jack. Credit cards can be scanned by this add-on and payment can be processed online without needing to use expensive commercial card readers and services. This way, small businesses or even single-person ones could use the new system to take credit cards and save a lot of money by avoiding more expensive systems.

Letting stores to use such devices that are more widely available is one purpose for Square. Another one is using Internet services to process and track sells in a more intelligent way. The model of Apple stores can be extended. It can e-mail receipts instead of using paper support on one hand and, on the other hand, by having a history of the customers, the system can provide a track of frequent shoppers programs with no need of stamps or punch cards. Socially involved stores have the option of donating a penny for each transaction to a preferred charitable institution.

Sightglass Coffee in San Francisco is testing the new payment system, as the implementation is currently limited to a few small companies, a wider distribution being planned for next year.


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