Square's Tiny Card Reader
Running my own business has been great; the work is challenging and fun, and I enjoy getting paid for my hard work. The only downside? Accepting cheques and not being able to take credit cards; mobile payments in Canada aren’t micro-business-friendly at all.
Currently Zoompass is available; it’s a micropayment scheme that’s endorsed by every major telecom carrier in Canada. The idea is that your phone can act as your mobile wallet. While this is great for shuttling money around to friends and family, it doesn’t supply a solution for entrepreneurs who want to be able to provide services and charge ordinary credit/debit card-weilding customers for them on the go.
What I really want is Square; an easy-to-use, encrypted (as of today) payment method that doesn’t require a merchant account. Square provides the hardware for free, and it’s small enough to slip in your pocket, so you can tuck it away when it’s not in use.
VeriFone PAYware
Square also provides relatively low rates, charging just 1.5% of the purchase price as a fee. That’s a rate that I, as a services vendor, can live with. The downside to Square? First and foremost: not available in Canada (typical!). Also, the currently hardware doesn’t support chip-and-pin, something that’s becoming more necessary as time goes on.
As an alternative: right now VeriFone mobile is taking pre-registrations for their mobile payment device called PAYware. It’s going to retail for ~$50 (covers your activation fee as well). This bulky device offers chip-and-pin as well as swipe transactions, and includes a secure button pad on the back. The rates for VeriFone are higher, you need a merchant account (though VeriFone says that they’ll help you set one up), and the cost to get started is higher.
Neither of these devices are currently available in Canada, leaving micro-businesses as a category that is severely underserved. Someone, anyone, needs to cross the border and start offering this service… and quick!
Yes, I’m also looking for a way to accept debit and credit cards for my small business. I’m still looking. I’m in Canada, and see that the square is not available, which is a bummer because it looked like the perfect solution for me!
Verifone wants a merchant account and will even ‘help’ you to get one. ’nuff said. One of the biggest advantages of Square is that it doesn’t need a huge pain in the behind merchant account with it’s endless fees, high processing costs, paperwork, and on and on. If you’re doing a relatively low volume in a low risk business the very last thing you need is a merchant bank yanking your strings. One should also ask what Verifone gets out of ‘helping’ you get a merchant account. Very small business needs a simple payment solution just not another merchant bank dressing up their tired old model in a new technology coat.
Our company is about to release a product similar to Square for Canada. Check it out at http://www.kudospayments.com. We’ll be offering a promo for a free reader for the first 2,000 people who sign up. (Sorry for the shameless plug, but I thought it might be newsworthy)
I, along with thousands also need this solution!! Anyupdates to this srticle since May 2011??
As usual us Canadians get disadvantaged by the new products out on the market. If it does come to Canada, i bet it will not be as attractive as the US. (ie. Netflix)
Our banks are too big and powerful that it’s either they will offer the mobile device (at a high cost) or we won’t have it at all.
Thank you for the valuable information. If you get square up in the USA, will it work over the border? or, in the USA with a card from over the border?
I’m in Israel at the moment and would love to be able to use square up here!
This is also exactly what I want too. What is needed to bump up Canada as a priority item?
You can use Payfirma in Canada. They do the same thing but for both iPhone and Blackberry: http://www.payfirma.com/solutions/mobile_solutions/iphone_mobile_payment_app
Jeremy
Looking for any info Sqaureup.com make a ca lots of customers waiting to use before cellphone wallets come out
Yes, it frustrates me that it is not available in Canada yet. Come on! Please bring square north!
I am looking around for a similar solution and Squareup does sound like a good set up. In my searches I did come across this: http://www.kudospayments.ca/ though I have no idea what they are like, but it sounds similar and is available in Canada.
Payfirma (www.payfirma.com/iphone) offers the exact same solution as Square but they are Canadian and their rates are better. The company is located in Vancouver and is a start-up founded by payment experts from the old verspay.
Please stop playing the nationalistic card. People want American Square and that is obvious, not some half-asses Canadian copy that we always seem to get up here. We always get shafted and most times it is because of our anti-innovative/ risk-taking culture and slow government approval…the three big banks in this country controlling everything doesn’t help either.
Canadians want Square! What is taking so darn long?!?!?!!
Well, for one thing, the current US setup violates Canada’s Privacy Act. Square is retaining information like the email address, which is not allowed in Canada.
And besides, you know that most US companies ignore Canada. But Intuit and a few others are offering services that do comply with our laws.
Well, It is now almost November 2011. Still no change:
a) all major banks in Canada charge HUGE Fees.
b) Square IS NOT Available in Canada
C) Credit Unions offer the actual hardware for FREE, with 1.58% fees, and a five year contract.
The last one sound good??? WRONG! They also require you to open a business account with them, which will charge you an additional 1.50% per month.
Want out of your contract? Cough up $300! Oh, and a minimum balance of $1000
I in montreal in canada your square are what we need for service like me.
BUMP!!
Square up north of the border!
Payfirma is Canada’s Square: http://www.payfirma.com
Payfirma sucks…bad copy job.
Has anyone used Kudos?
I’ve signed up for a reader, but there’s no info on what will happen when chip and pin is mandated – whether or not they’ll change their readers.
It also says you need to have a merchant account – so while there are no monthly fees for the reader, it’s not clear as to whether they charge you for this elusive merchant account.
I’d love to know what others are doing. We are using paypal and manually typing things in .. which can be a real pain and slow us down.
Any device which is available in Canada — KUDOS or PAYFIRMA — has a fee of approximately $100 attached to it. SQUARE is free. Perhaps a concerted effort must be made by these organizations who want our business to match the SQUARE deal. I won’t sign up until they provide me with the device with which I will do business.
Doug,
Kray from Kudos here. There are NO fees of $100 when signing up with us. You simply pay 2.9% + $0.20 per transaction. That’s it, that’s all. No sign up fees, no monthly fees and no hidden fees.
What you see is what you get! We want to make it as easy and inexpensive as possible for people to accept credit cards in the small business marketplace.
The kudos web site state that they want 50 dollars for the reader. Square up gives the reader free.
If I can get the free reader for the blackberry bold I would consider kudos
He’s referring to the cost of the reader at $99 (although it is half off at the moment in a promotional blitz)
Checked out Payfirma’s site and they appear to be offering the same service as Square Up. The only difference I can see is the exorbitant sum they want for the opportunity to use their service. I sell at farmers markets and craft shows and would love this product but just can’t afford it. Hopefully we will get some competition up here as that is the only way we will get lower prices.
I think Canadians are fed up with being charged outrageous fees compared to our U.S neighbors.
I use Payfirma and they’re pretty good. The monthly fee is only $10 for me but I process about $10K a month so minimums dont apply. The cool thing about Payfirma is I also use them for my retail store and it’s all the same account, so no multiple fees.
The guy I deal with is Jeff and he’s amazing. Ask for him if anyone calls there.
Paypal has just released such a service which is available in Canada. The reader and app are free.
https://www.paypal.com/ca/webapps/mpp/credit-card-reader
Kudospayments was started by the people who introducted Smart Swipe (A way to pay online without keying in your credit card info, to protect from key loggers). I helped beta test the smartswipe software over 3 years ago.
It is a Canadian company
At the time smart swipe was pretty cool, but I let the guy know I was trying to use it with my POS solution, oviously they took things one step further since out last conversation
. Since I have a smart swipe already, its free for me to apply for Kudospayments. So I will give it a try.
Hey Sheldon,
If you are using our Kudos Portal already to process transactions from a Laptop, you only need to get yourself a mobile swipe device and you are off to the races!
Shoot me an email and I will set you up with a discount code.
kray.mitchell (at) netsecu.re
K
Kudo sounds good except they do charge $100 for the reader. Right now they have a 50% off promo but that is still $50 that some others don’t charge.
Intuit’s GoPayment looked promising until you come to the part where you need a cheque for the application. Apparently using an e-commerce account that doesn’t use cheques is not an option for a company pushing a mobile, paperless app.
Intuit’s Go Payment is available in Canada. 2.7% charge, free reader, no monthy fees, no minimum purchases. I was just approved and waiting on getting the reader in the mail.
@Michael – They require a cheque because they only accept accounts from “real” businesses. As long as you have a business account you can get your bank to produce a letter for them that will be acceptable. That’s what I did because I had the business account but no cheques.
Do anyone know of a solution that allows accepting Interac Debit on a smart phone? With the type of business I’m looking to start debit would be more popular then credit card.
Take care,
Shannon
GoPayment is fine except that First Data can’t seem to work out the quirks in their fee structure. I’ve been struggling to get things straightened out since July.
Square. Canada. Today. https://squareup.com/news/releases/2012/square-arrives-in-canada
it is now available in Canada
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1276554–twitter-co-founder-jack-dorsey-s-mobile-credit-card-reader-comes-to-canada
So, I got my SQUARE reader in the mail.
It was FREE! It looks SO cool.
Alas, I can’t seem to set it up with a Canadian Bank account!
They need a ROUTING number (9 digits) and what we have in
Canada is a TRANSIT number (8 digits).
Has anyone successfully set up SQUARE with a Canadian Bank account?