Square From Jack Dorsey The Peer 2 Peer Payment System For Smartphones
The Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey has started a new company called Square to develop a payment service and portable device which allows merchants to accept payments and customers to track purchases via mobile phones.
The service depends on a card scanner which plugs into an audio input jack and it also offer features such as photo authentication and mobile receipt delivery, in an effort to create a “convenient alternative to paper money and receipts”.
The payment system is secure according to Dorsey. “Transaction data are safely encrypted, and the credit card information is never stored on the device, only passed along”, he said. Signatures are drawn with a finger on the touch screen
It is expected to be available in 2010. Square already has agreements with Mastercard, Visa and American Express to process payments.
How Square works:
For Seller
- Square wants to give away the credit card-reading dongles away for free to merchants so they can accept credit card payment on their smartphones (or iPod Touches).
- Free dongles would make people more likely to sign up for seller accounts, especially if they like to sell stuff in public or through classified sites such as Craiglist.
For Buyer
- As a customer, all you need to buy from a Square merchant is a credit, debit or pre-paid card, a finger with which to sign the touchscreen and an e-mail address for the receipt.
By blog TechCrunch’s reckoning, they valued Square at $40 million even before it launched.