iPay: iPhone Turns Into Credit Card Machine

The iPhone is about to be iZettled.

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The iZettle treatment is winging its way to an iOS phone near you from next month which will turn the smartphone into a credit card machine, allowing it to receive chip payments.

This nifty idea by Swedish company iZettle will allow the iPhone become a mini till for payments, although it is confined to plastic money only, by linking it up to a small smart card reader.

All the same, it makes it a handy tool for small businesses and other mobile operators such as tradesmen who can now accept credit card payments at the click of an iPhone. Payees sign the screen for authorisation purposes.

Users can also keep track of all the card payments taken, and export sale data sales data for accounting purposes. Receipts are also sent to the inbox of the payee.

“If you are a plumber or an electrician, you could take a payment there and then, rather than have to invoice your customer and then wait for days for them to pay you,” says one of iZettle founders, Jacob de Geer.

The card reader is free and iZettle takes a transaction fee. It is to be rolled out initially in Europe and no word if it will come down under just yet.
Considering all the furore about Android’s new Wallet, which allows make payments with an phone using tap and touch Near Field Technology, this turns the tables allowing phones receive payments.