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Europe's Square
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- quarterto 14y agoLooks good. I always thought the Square dongle looked a bit flimsy. This looks much more professional. On the other hand, what the fuck is with that name? iZettle? What's a zettle when it's at home?
- arethuza 14y agoI assume it's supposed to sound like "settle"
- tomp 14y agoThe problem with this name is that there are several possibilities for pronouncing it... a German "z" ([ay-tse-tl])? An regular English "z" ([ay-ze-tl])? An "s" ([ay-se-tl])? I hope they change it.
- quarterto 14y agoOr the southern Spanish [ee-thet-lay]?
- unwind 14y agoThe name was pretty clear to me, I read it as a pun/play on the verb "to settle", i.e. to perform a financial transaction in order to resolve a debt. You triggered my curiousity, though: what's your (mis)interpretation? I don't understand the reference to "at home" at all, and basic Googling failed to resolve it. Another point about their communications is that their main (English) front page copy says "[...] is as easy as pie", an idiomatic expression that to me screams of the US, which was funny because of the European angle. It seems they're actually fellow Swedes (yay); I've seen some ads for their card reader in local press, too. The reader was then coupled with (if I recall correctly) a phone with a business-type subscription, the ad was by one of the local/Nordic cell phone operators. Interesting.
- quarterto 14y ago"When it's at home" is a Britishism meaning "basically": http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/when_its_at_home http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/when_its_at_home. We use "easy as pie" in the UK too, although it's probably an American import. (EDIT: almost certainly 19th century American. Mark Twain used similar phrases http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/as-easy-as-pie.html http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/as-easy-as-pie.html) I think maybe my accent has a much harder Z than they were anticipating.
- unwind 14y agoThanks! You have a missing apostrophe in your link, took me a while to figure that out. :) The proper link is http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/when_it%27s_at_home http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/when_it%27s_at_home.
- netrus 14y agoWell, a Zettel is a small sheet of paper in German. I have no idea if this is the background, but I really read this as iZettel - and it doesn't make any sense. On the other hand, "Kindle" is something like an angel in German (or a beer), and I think it is a great name anyway!
- phreeza 14y agoI always thought it was the bavarian/austrian/swiss diminutive for Zettel. Didn't make much sense to me either, except maybe because an old fashioned receipt is a small "Zettel"?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- lachyg 14y agoOne 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: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_and_PIN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_and_PIN
- rmc 14y agoHeads up, If you're an American going to Europe, regular swipe only credit cards won't work as often here. Nearly all point-of-sale credit card machines require chip & pin. Or you'll wind up like some tourists in my local supermarket unable to use their credit card.
- ErrantX 14y agoWhilst many places often refuse to swipe any more (which I suppose is their prerogative) it does actually work. If the chip/pin reader has the swipe slot at the top then it will work. Tesco don't have the swipe slot, and they now train till staff to say they can't swipe cards. But it does work on the till itself (I know this because when a friend visited we made the poor till attendant try it :)). EDIT: also, interestingly, it looks like this service only uses the chip feature, not the pin :)
- JonnieCache 14y agoIncreasingly, most shops do not offer the ability to swipe/sign. I think it is their right to refuse to do so.
- jedc 14y agoIIRC, the law states that if your card has a Chip/Pin, you have to use it. It basically ignores the case of swipe cards. Generally I've found that swipe almost always works, it's just that most people don't know that it does. (And you have to be willing to help show them how.)
- ralfn 14y ago
- diggan 14y agoTried 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.
- robmcm 14y agoI would be worried letting someone read my card information via an Android phone. Malware would easily be able to sit in the background and intercept information from the reader. At least on iOS you know any interception would have to be on transmition from the app to the server, which is not all client side. Perhaps that's a little unfair. I guess as more and more apps and devices become avaliable for reading you card inforamtion more and more opportunities exist for stealing your info.
- bnr 14y agoHow about jailbroken iPhones? Do you check the vendor/platform of the CC reader in every shop before paying?
- robmcm 14y agoYes very true, and you could easily hack once of the physical readers they use now. Almost every shop I go into seems to have a different make or model of card reader. I guess with Android there is more change of the device owner not knownig it's there, it's much easier to say phish someone into installing malware onto an Android device than it is to jailbrake their iOS phone. I wouldn't like to be in the shoes of fraud departments right now...
- quarterto 14y agoIt's orders of magnitude harder to clone an EMV than a magnetic strip.
- PeterisP 14y agoA couple of years ago when I worked with card security, the current status was that while there were proof-of-concept examples of EMV cloning, at the time there weren't any cases at all (worldwide, for any bank) of real fraud with cloned EMV chips - it would be too expensive, and it's far simpler for criminals to simply find places which just check the magstripe and not the chip.
- fonzie 14y agoDoesn'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.
- Tim-Boss 14y agohttps://izettle.desk.com/customer/en_us/portal/articles/531106-which-cards-can-i-accept-with-izettle-# https://izettle.desk.com/customer/en_us/portal/articles/5311...
- fonzie 14y agoI read that. Hence why I said at the moment. It'd be great for them to get it sooner rather than later. At least in the UK, most basic accounts issue Visa debit cards and a lot of the basic credit cards are also Visa.
- m_eiman 14y agoThey support VISA in Sweden, so I guess they just lack an agreement with suitable banks and payment processors in the UK.
- hopeless 14y agoWhat's all this "sign with your finger" nonsense? With Chip & PIN cards (i.e., all our modern credit cards) you should just need the chip & PIN. Signatures are only a backup authentication. Also, signing with anything other than a pen and paper is still a disastrous user experience (see every courier's PDA system ever built)
- altrego99 14y agoEven signing with pen and paper is a baggage we're carrying with hardly any guarantee of identification, and has challenges like your signature being too simple or changing over time. This is utterly rubbish and should be made obsolete in the digital age, IMHO. Where are the finger print scanners or iris scanners when we need them?
- buro9 14y agoPIN keypads have to be secure... totally secure. Passing through the iPhone isn't security. For them to include a PIN entry system, they would need to do so on the chip reader device itself (non-iPhone). The keypads for PIN entry systems always hash the PIN before it leaves the keypad... no other software gets the PIN. If you cannot offer secure PIN entry, then you cannot offer PIN entry. You can still take a signature, but now the burden of responsibility changes. Fraud is covered by the merchants if you use signatures.
- objclxt 14y agoA good example of this is the Apple Stores in Europe: like in the US, staff use iPods to take orders and checkout. The difference is when it comes to payment: instead of swiping the credit card and signing on the iPod screen, transaction details are wirelessly sent to one of many Chip & PIN readers around the store, and you then complete your purchase there.
- thatjoshguy 14y agoDo they go to cashwrap, or do they have just 'standalone' chip+pin terminals in the store?
- yesbabyyes 14y agoSwede 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. Edit: they definitely support VISA.
- aes256 14y agoLack of Chip and PIN support is going to be a major turn-off in much of the European market...
- suhailpatel 14y agoExactly this. I've had a chip and pin card since they were introduced in the UK and never had to sign anything related to payment. It's always a case of entering your PIN on the terminal and authorise. I was previously under the assumption that you can't authorise a payment via a signature nowadays in the UK?
- quarterto 14y agoFrom http://www.chipandpin.co.uk/faqs/affect.html#retailer http://www.chipandpin.co.uk/faqs/affect.html#retailer: What if the retailer does not accept chip and PIN? Where the retailer has not upgraded to chip and PIN technology, you will be asked to follow the current card payment process using your signature to confirm the transaction.
- dan1234 14y agoThat site hasn't been updated since 2006 so I would rely on any information on there.
- objclxt 14y agoAbsolutely - what's not clear at all is where the liability lies. In the UK at least, and I assume the rest of Europe, if a retailer uses a PIN the liability for fraud rests with the card issuer. But if the retailer lets the user sign instead the liability is with them: this is an incentive for retailers to accept and promote Chip/PIN over a signature. iZettle read the chip (good), but then you sign for the goods (bad). It's not at all clear if that means liability for fraud now rests with the seller rather than the issuer. Their help page is very vague on the subject, and alludes to the fact card issuers won't allow PINs to be captured on mobile devices (this makes some sense, from a phishing perspective). In fact, iZettle's help page has zero results when you search for 'fraud'. I think this is something they should address. Coincidentally (shameless plug here), I blogged about this exact problem a month or so ago, bemoaning the lack of a good Chip & PIN solution. I'm not convinced iZettle is it...I've now written up some more concerns about fraud in a new post, here: http://cleveryou.net/post/23162180527/izettle-square-killer http://cleveryou.net/post/23162180527/izettle-square-killer
- jermaink 14y agoEconomically, 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. 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.
- tomp 14y agoWhat do you mean? iSettle's and Square's websites look just as much alike as any recent startups'...
- jermaink 14y agoHonestly, I tend to say that the website clearly shows a lot (!) of elements and interactions that are derived from Square. And it does not look like a co-existent happenstance.
- trin_ 14y agocertain product-websites tend to converge ... not because noone is creative but they work. there's absolutely no sense for them to create a totally different page that may not work as good just because they want to be different.
- quarterto 14y agoWhile the giant image slideshow of the product in use is a bit egregious, the rest of the site has a totally different look and feel.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bede 14y agoHowever 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.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoSquare has a good product name, because it's memorable, and it fits the device (it's square!) On the other hand, iZettle is neither memorable, nor makes any sense.
- arethuza 14y ago"iZettle is neither memorable, nor makes any sense" YMMV - I thinks it's both memorable and makes sense (sounds like "I settle"). Also, I've never seen a Square device so their domain isn't memorable to me!
- VeejayRampay 14y agoSquare is kind of annoying because it conflicts with Squaresoft in my mind (later renamed Square/Enix after the merge), which is collaquially called Square.
- fennecfoxen 14y agoThe thing that makes me worry is the "Super social" tag. If there's one thing I like about Square compared to all the other nonsense Web2.0 garbage out there, it's that it isn't trying to spam my Facebook page with all my purchases. (The closest thing is that there's a "find nearby businesses" in the Pay With Square app. That's fine.) "Social" in this context just sounds like "here is another way we think we can make more money off of you". Bah. I've no love for my credit card company but at least it's not trying to be a social network. (Yet. (That I know of.))
- jarek 14y agoThey should have named it Hipcard, obvs.
- sgt 14y agoThis 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.
- Newky 14y agoDoes anyone know whether this is only Visa payments or does it support maestro/laser cards also?
- anemic 14y agoI 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: For private individuals a facebook account is needed to accept payments. 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 Location of the transaction is stored and cannot be turned off, it's unclear why this is needed. They seem to comply with PCI data security standards but are not audited (yet?) 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. 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.
- yesbabyyes 14y ago> 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. In my experience, signing works really well. Also, in Sweden nobody checks the signature. I don't even bother signing my card, and I can't understand how anybody can read the signature on the card. I think it's happened once that someone's wanted to check my signature against the card.
- antr 14y agoI guess that checking the signature is a US thing, in the UK, Switzerland and Spain if you don't pay with a chip & pin card they ask for ID, and that works pretty fine security wise.
- arethuza 14y agoExcept for car park payment machines in the UK - which seem to accept your card and don't ask for a PIN or a signature.
- johanbrook 14y agoAlso, check out the newly announced Swish (https://www.getswish.com https://www.getswish.com, 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.
- sparknlaunch12 14y agoReally like efforts to make payments and secure transactions easier however not sure how this will compete with the big boys (banks etc). For example Visa offer contact less payments for merchants via pay wave. Barclays have payments from your smart phone via ping it. Then there is nfc technology. Just trying to test the longevity of this product. Does it alleviate the pain of using a card and remembering a pin. Edit: also worth mentioning Paypal, Barclays Paytag.
- grimborg 14y agoHow much are the payment fees? I couldn't find it on their website. And what about the 30% Apple Tax?
- Chrono 14y ago2.75% with MasterCard, Visa and Diners Club. 3.75% with AMEX without a card reader its 1.5 SEK + 3.5%
- spydre100 14y agoTheir 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.
- spydre100 14y agohttp://www.tillify.com http://www.tillify.com
- spydre100 14y agoIn 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.
- spydre100 14y agoI 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.