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Square Arrives in Canada
- togasystems 14y agoAnybody notice that www.square.ca has been hijacked? I have it redirecting to a page with an iframe from areasnap.com . I have tested this on two different networks near Vancouver.
- danudey 14y agoI thought they just had a broken website. Saw the same thing from home in Vancouver this morning.
- mohamedattahri 14y agoVery very very poor french translation.
- madmath 14y agoRead through it, could not find any grammar mistakes. I think it's fine.
- mohamedattahri 14y agoGrammar is not the problem. Hence the word "poor" and not "bad".
- alanctgardner2 14y agoEmbarrassingly, square.ca is rather... bare at the time of posting. I am super excited for this, though. I have a number of friends who sell artwork at various outdoor fairs, and I've inundated them with tales of how much easier theirs lives would be if they could get a credit card reader for their phone. It really reduces the friction involved in trying to make what is essentially a several hundred dollar impulse purchase. edit: Is it just me, or are all the thinks in the press release broken? squareup.ca, square.ca, squareup.com/ca/ca/fr, none of these work.
- jonhernandez 14y agoSeems to be up and working now. You can tell as the credit cards seem to be limited to Visa/MC as opposed to the US version.
- alanctgardner2 14y agoFor me, square.ca goes to a small 'Search The Web' page still. As linked in their press release.
- jellicle 14y agoThere's also Kudos: http://takekudos.com/ http://takekudos.com/ which seems to do the same thing as Square. Anyone used both services and is willing to compare them? Kudos seems to be slightly more expensive ($50 signup + higher swipe fees).
- jordanvisco 14y ago"Paypal Here" should be here soon too. https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/credit-card-reader https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/credit-card-reader Also, there's http://payfirma.com http://payfirma.com
- danudey 14y agoPayFirma is pretty pricey (and via Twitter I was told that they're 'aiming for a different market' than Square). Intuit's Gopayment seems like a better option for smaller businesses or craft fairs: http://gopayment.intuit.ca/ http://gopayment.intuit.ca/
- AndyIngram 14y agoSaw this https://squareup.com/directory/payfirma https://squareup.com/directory/payfirma
- rmckayfleming 14y agoWhat would be amazing is if they started taking Interac as well.
- msbarnett 14y agoYeah, it feels significantly less useful in the Canadian market without support for Interac. You couldn't run a business with just this, here (unless you want to get yelled at by, and lose a lot of sales to, the 90% of your customers who are going to want to pay by debit and not credit).
- danudey 14y agoMy girlfriend was selling at a craft fair recently, and I bought her a nice pair of earrings from another vendor who used Intuit's GoPayment system, and honestly I probably wouldn't have remembered to come back once I had cash (if I'd even gone to get any). In that sort of environment, the standard is 'cash only', so adding Visa/MC to that is a bonus, not a drawback, and in my case it made her a $60 sale she wouldn't have otherwise had. This is especially true for higher-ticket items like silver jewellery, where I'm not likely to have $60 kicking around in my pocket, but I'll have no problem putting $60 on my Visa. Personally, I also find it hard to part with $60 in cash (more tangible) vs. putting it on my Visa or debit card. For actual businesses (like bigger food carts), a proper 3G bank terminal is probably the appropriate response, but in places where people aren't likely to expect any card use at all (smaller food carts, craft fairs, yard sales), having Square (or similar) is a net positive.
- msbarnett 14y agoThe problem is, that's really a different use case/value proposition than Square has in the US. Square is a godsend for small businesses there. Square's all over Portland, for instance, not just at yard sales and craft faires but in real businesses because it's an absolutely disruptive form of payment that lets them avoid some onerous fees and setup costs, and it lets them accept debit because debit piggybacks on the credit system in the US. But it's pretty crippled for that here in Canada. I know several small business, including my wife's, who were dying for Square to come here, because getting set up with a proper payment terminal in Canada is obscenely expensive for a small business. But there's absolutely no way that they could use this as offered, with zero debit support, ubiquitous customer demand for debit usage, and no support for chip-reading in an environment where chip usage will be mandatory in 2 years and in which not using a chip already causes credit card transactions to be declined as 'suspicious' at a fairly high rate.
- nealabq 14y agoSquare's company motto: Don't be Oval.
- zllak 14y agoWhat is really amazing is to launch a website this big and have a typo right on the front page. "Sains frais" just means nothing. My guess is they wanted to say "Sans frais", which is "without fee". Nobody speaks French at Square ?!
- jameswyse 14y agoTheir English isn't much better. "Square Register is the free app that allows anyone to safe and secure credit card payments with[...]" That said, it isn't a big deal to me. Square is really cool and I hope it will be available in Australia at some point, though I won't be holding my breath.
- zachalexander 14y agoMore startups should hire writers, or at least, people with some level of writing skill who will notice stuff like this.
- skeletonjelly 14y agoDefinitely under appreciated. Writing is everywhere!
- zachalexander 14y ago*under-appreciated ;)
- philk10 14y agoChrome thinks the page is in French - well, half of it is - and offers to translate it for me
- alasano 14y agoEven worse, "Sains frais" is closer to "Seins Frais" which is "Fresh Tits".
- mrknmc 14y agoPlease, come to Europe.
- henrikschroder 14y agohttps://www.izettle.com/ https://www.izettle.com/ Might not be your parts of Europe, though. :-)
- jonnycowboy 14y agoDoes anybody know how they deal with the smart chips on the credit card? Almost no retailer uses the swipe anymore.
- moolcool 14y agoAlmost all cards here have NFC, chip, and swipe
- msbarnett 14y agoThey seemingly don't. Which gives the current reader a, what, 2 year lifespan max? They shut swipe-based transactions down entirely at the beginning of 2015, IIRC. My Visa already is far more likely to flag a transaction as suspicious if it isn't chip-authenticated. Between that and the total lack of Interac support, this is honestly a pretty lame offering. It feels like Square has absolutely no awareness of the current state of Canadian payment systems.
- cbhl 14y agoVisa debit is the norm in the US, and I have had immense difficulty finding anyone with a working NFC or Chip&PIN terminal at the cash register. Canada is on the cutting edge of payment systems, for all that we have crummy shipping infrastructure.
- bolotye 14y agoActually, our shipping infrastructure is fine. It's our geography, population density and relatively small population that gets in the way. Square in Canada is good thing, and I'd say potentially far more disruptive than they were even in the US. Having been in a seat where I had to negotiate and deal with almost every payment provider in Canada, and all of them verging on being downright evil IMO, a service that focuses on the customer experience (both merchant and end consumer) will be a fun disruption to watch.
- xxpor 14y agoWait, this is a big deal if swipe is being phased out. Very few us cards have a chip. That will make it impossible for US tourists to use cards in Canada.
- blackysky 14y agoSomeone should tell Square that in Canada we use smart chips...I don't remember the last time I swipe a card....Cool product with prehistoric technology...
- jonny_eh 14y agoCanadian credit cards still have stripes on them that work. I don't see the problem.
- potatolicious 14y agoThe rest of this thread is worth a read. To summarize: very soon chipped cards that are swiped instead of chip-and-pinned will be far more likely to trip the fraud alarm.
- blackysky 14y agoYou are right but you and I know the Square brand so I won't have a problem to use it but here in canada any time Banks give you a brand new card with smart chips , they tell you to stop using the swipe system because it's not as safe as the smart chips... Guess what!? my mom stops and refuses to use a swipe system of any kind....
- herge 14y agoBecause the PIN is not meant to be shared, it is a lot easier for banks to deny all responsibility for any card fraud when using chip-and-pin in court, which is why they are so gung-ho in convincing people to use them.
- AndyIngram 14y agoStarbucks still uses the strip. Although or all new cards use chip and pin now and most retailers can still use the mag strip.
- GiraffeNecktie 14y agoI think we can assume that Square will transition to chip readers eventually. In the meantime, the swipe works on Canadian cards so it's not really an issue.
- mcantelon 14y agoImpressive that Square can launch in Canada while much of Google's offerings apparently can't.
- run4yourlives 14y agoYou are useless in Canada without Interac (debit, but not really from a US POV [1]). This is the number one choice of payment in Canada. Hell, I don't even carry cash anymore because Interac is near universal. It's going to be difficult to gain traction for Square if they are offering businesses a solution that only provides half of what the competition does, even if it is cheaper. Square has - unless they know something they aren't saying - massively misunderstood the reality of the marketplace in Canada. It is not the US with funny tax laws. In the realm of consumer banking/payment, we are light years ahead of the US in certain key ways. 1. In Canada, our bank/atm cards are our debit cards. The entire system is linked with a joint network called Interac. When you open a bank account you get a chip/PIN enabled card that allows you to make direct withdraws from ATMs, as well as instantly buy something from a terminal at a store. Credit Card providers are shut out of this system, and its 100% penetration with Canadian banks has made it the primary consumer choice for payments. Yes, security is a bit of an issue, hence the high rate of chip adoption in Canada. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac
- herge 14y agoIn all fairness, interact involves fees for the consumer (depending on which bank you are with), and, outside of students who may not be eligible for the, almost everybody has credit cards.
- kerryfalk 14y agoWhich fees? On rare occasions some retailers try to charge a small fee at the point of sale on debit payments but I've never heard of a fee for the consumer to use debit. I don't use cash and haven't for years. I only pay with debit.
- run4yourlives 14y agoSome banks charge a "$x fee per transaction". This has gone out of style though because of competition. The practice of charging $x to use your card (whatever it is) by smaller businesses is actually against their terms of service and you can technically report them.
- rohern 14y agoI chuckled a lot at this headline.
- oulipo 14y agoWe want Square in France too!
- nchlswu 14y agoSome of the comments criticising stripe-only and lack of Interac support, seem a tad hyperbolic. While these are valid concerns, Stripe transactions are still accepted and I'm sure there's a decent chunk of places using stripe. By the time chip is universal, I'm sure Square will have addressed this shortcoming. As for Interac, I'm presumig that the expansion to Canada will also include the Starbucks partnership, so I imagine it can't be far behind. The regulatory environment is much different in Canada. The biggest thing I see here is the fact that a startup with significant attention and traction is entering our market. When they partnered with Starbucks, I was curious if that would mean they would provide coverage across North America and it definitely looks like they are. In the short term, I think Square Wallet is the key takeaway here. Mobile payments are gaining some serious steam and Square has a big chance to establish an early lead.
- kerryfalk 14y agoI think some of my fellow Canadians are being a bit harsh on Square here. You raise some good points, Starbucks is also one of the only places here in Canada that I still swipe at. Most other places insert chip. But I think it will take a long time for those others to switch or even consider using a different platform. I'd guess that this is also what Square assumes. But there's a big opportunity here that I enjoy dealing with in the US but hate here in Canada. I don't use cash and I travel a lot. I have to go to the airport by taxi frequently. In Canada it's a pain in the ass because they actually get out the old carbon copy machine and the drivers complain all the time. In the US the driver hands me his phone with a Square on it. So much better.
- ConstantineXVI 14y agoSquare's goal seems to be removing as many barriers as possible to accepting CCs; they aren't aiming for people who already take them as much as those who otherwise couldn't (easily). The hardware needed to accept chipped cards is far more complex than the simple mag-stripe reader they're currently using (not to mention likely not universal); it'll take time to start production on those. The incumbents will still be around to displace once they're ready to.
- tobyjsullivan 14y agoSo far I've attempted two different forms to mail me a Square reader in Canada and both failed. The first (presented immediately after registering) required me to provide a Zip code (and wouldn't accept a postal code) and the second (found through account settings) allowed me to provide a postal code but required I select a state (and only presented US states in a drop down). Clear examples of common localization issues. Hope they get it sorted out so maybe, one day, I could actually use Square in Canada...
- seanmccann 14y agoLooks to only be Visa/MasterCard, not American Express. Any idea if Square is looking to add Amex support in Canada?
- DigitalSea 14y agoCanada is nice and all, but what about us Australians? There is no alternative payment provider to a bank other than using "Paypal Here" (which launched a few months ago). Eftpos absolutely dominates retail transactions here, I think a competitor needs to step up because my understanding is Eftpos fees are quite high for a retailer here.
- nosecreek 14y agoWhat advantages does Stripe have over Intuit's GoPayment (http://www.gopayment.ca/Intuit http://www.gopayment.ca/Intuit)? Intuit's rates are actually lower (albeit by only .05%).