Europe's Square

I have one reader connected to my ipad. Got it for free so I had to try it. I have accepted only one payment so far so not much experience about it, but some comments:<p>For private individuals a facebook account is needed to accept payments.<p>The legal agreement is a mess, they even warn that your data can be transferred to countries where privacy laws are not in par with european standards and data is stored for 7 years<p>Location of the transaction is stored and cannot be turned off, it's unclear why this is needed.<p>They seem to comply with PCI data security standards but are not audited (yet?)<p>The customer must sign the transaction on the ipad screen with finger (even harder with iphone). it's very hard to check that to the signature on the back of the card. also the customer must type his/her email on the screen if they want a receipt (there is no receipt printer). So each transaction takes a long time.<p>So it's good for selling at fleamarkets and such but for serious business it's no match for a payment terminal. Also if you don't already own iphone/ipad then it's also more expensive.

One thing that may not be too familiar to the Americans, but this looks a lot sturdier (read:larger) because it isn't a swiper like Square. It is a chip reader, see: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_and_PIN" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_and_PIN</a>

What's all this "sign with your finger" nonsense? With Chip &#38; PIN cards (i.e., all our modern credit cards) you should just need the chip &#38; PIN. Signatures are only a backup authentication.<p>Also, signing with anything other than a pen and paper is still a disastrous user experience (see every courier's PDA system ever built)

Swede here -- the company is Swedish and I have used it on several occasions, as a payer. It works great. As others have mentioned, it reads the chip, and is sturdy. Not using PIN though, you sign the receipt with your finger, which works really well. You can also get the receipt via email.<p>Edit: they definitely support VISA.

Really like efforts to make payments and secure transactions easier however not sure how this will compete with the big boys (banks etc).<p>For example Visa offer contact less payments for merchants via pay wave.<p>Barclays have payments from your smart phone via ping it.<p>Then there is nfc technology.<p>Just trying to test the longevity of this product. Does it alleviate the pain of using a card and remembering a pin.<p>Edit: also worth mentioning Paypal, Barclays Paytag.

Looks good. I always thought the Square dongle looked a bit flimsy. This looks much more professional.<p>On the other hand, what the fuck is with that name? iZettle? What's a zettle when it's at home?

However successful this product becomes (which looks doubtful given its dependence upon signatures), its irritating generic web 2.0 startup name will prevent me from ever taking it seriously.

Doesn't seem to accept Visa at the moment. As much as I like the idea (despite the name) of a European Square, not accepting Visa is less than optimal, especially as they try to gain traction.

Tried it with an iPhone and it worked great. I hope iZettle will be developed for Android also, since the phone I'm always carrying is running Android.

Also, check out the newly announced Swish (<a href="https://www.getswish.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.getswish.com</a>, site in Swedish), which offers the same functionality, but with cooperation with several major banks. It seems to bypass swiping credit cards completely, by communicating wirelessly with cell phone numbers.

Economically, I can understand that people start to copy concepts and transfer good ideas into their homecountry. That´s nothing new - you can find that across human history and it was often connected to progress. Basically, copycats act like spice merchants in late centuries. They scout for some new spices and try to find out if they can match or create demand in other regions of the world.<p>However, what I really dislike is when people also start copy the look and feel of the innovator´s website. I think we should apply the same moral values to startup ideas as we do in science: That implies to create your own work, not to rephrase and to mention the original source. This piece might be missing in the system.

Their is another company that is breaking into this market in US, Brazil and Europe. They are working on making it easy to accept cards in Europe and also getting the governmental approval for coupon fiscal in Brazil. The company Tillify.com are also rolling native apps and web apps for all devices that work consumer side and vendor side, They are also using the mobile phone number as a digital id to enroll consumers into their platform.

In Europe the card acceptance system will need to read the chip, but not enter the pin. The best solution is to accept the signature on the panel. This is what izettle have done. Its a u-turn on chip and pin but the only way it can be done as you cant pass the pin through the app for security issues. In larger outlets no doubt a wired card reader will be used and the pin will be entered into that reader as current systems do.

How much are the payment fees? I couldn't find it on their website. And what about the 30% Apple Tax?

Does anyone know whether this is only Visa payments or does it support maestro/laser cards also?

I think everyone here is missing the point. The dongle and the card swipe/read is merely a short term Trojan horse into changing payment. Further more it is a means to the end of cash payments. If you imagine that these apps will become the "Facebook" of commerce and how that can happen you will see the bigger picture. These apps allow everyone to pass currency using a device, sure they need a card right now as that is the "old skool" method we all respect. Once the card is swipped their is no need to do it ever again. Both parties are registered on the app and thus the "mobile wallet" has been created. Next they will role out "self serve" apps and cardless payment. What we are talking about here is merely a means to an end. Sadly it also means that these apps will Facebook commerce and while they are doing that they will put eCommerce on the back seat. Wait and see what happens.

This will be perfect for my dad's art gallery. Fewer and fewer people bring cash a long so he loses out on sales that way. It's a very small art gallery and conventional payment terminals are too expensive to buy/hire.

<a href="http://www.tillify.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.tillify.com</a>