We’ve previously reported on Square in the USA and iZettle in Sweden. Now we hear that a similar mobile payment service will appear in the UK within a few weeks.
Payment processing company CreditCall is preparing to launch a mobile payment app that’ll let businesses accept credit and debit card payments on a BlackBerry or Android mobile phone. The service, called CardEase Mobile, is due to launch on 1st December 2011 in partnership with CreditCall’s banking partner.
CardEase Mobile uses a separate card reader that connects to the BlackBerry or Android device via Bluetooth. The customer inserts their card and enters their PIN. The mobile phone then acts as a secure connection for the transaction before providing a receipt by email or text message. Visa, MasterCard and American Express have all approved the service, which is EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) certified.
Pete Alcock, Marketing Director at CreditCall, said “There are a number of card acceptance apps emerging at the moment which are clearly non-compliant with UK banking rules, some of which don’t even support Chip and PIN. With CardEase Mobile we have done the job properly and engineered the first solution that meets ALL the current UK requirements, so as to protect both cardholders and merchants from fraud, abuse and chargebacks. As a leader and innovator in this industry, security and compliance are paramount to us which is why no cardholder sensitive data is stored on the smartphone or card reader, and all data traffic is encrypted.”
CardEase Mobile is expected to be made available to a limited number of users from 1st December. It’ll be branded by the company’s as-yet-unnamed banking partner and - unlike a number of rival schemes - requires the user to have a merchant account for handling card payments.