For the last couple years we’ve been saying that what’s really missing in Canada is something like the Square payment system. This product was created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and has experienced massive success in the United States. Square is a dongle that merchants can attach to their smartphone and start immediately accepting customer payments. There has been a couple Canadian companies offer a similar service, not as cool, such as Payfirma and Moneris'”PAYD”.
Today, PayPay is officially jumping into the game with “PayPay Here” and also making it available to us Canadians. PayPal’s mobile card reader and payment service is not white square, but a blue triangle. PayPay said that Canada is one of the first countries that will be testing this out, “which is being offered to select merchants during an exclusive release period”, and is currently only available on the iPhone (iOS 4.0 and above), but will soon be coming to Android phones. This will be available to all Canadian businesses “later this year”. The card reader is free for merchants, plus no sign-up fees, but there’s a 2.7% charge “for swiped card transactions and PayPal payments” (Visa, MasterCard and American Express).
Darrell MacMullin, Managing Director, PayPal Canada, stated that “This is a massive step forward in realizing PayPal’s vision of anytime, anywhere, any way payments in Canada. We are solving a major pain point for small businesses by helping them say yes to customers who ask to pay by credit card or PayPal, without the businesses having to invest in expensive hardware and pay unexpected fees.”
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