iZettle launches in Germany

Swedish payment provider iZettle has launched its mobile payment card reader service in Germany. The firm has teamed up with DZ Bank and Deutsche Telekom to provide small businesses with the ability to accept payments via Android and iOS smartphones.

The firm will hand out 25,000 free chip-card readers to merchants in the country. To start with, iZettle will be available only to businesses in Germany, but the firm said that it is also looking to offer the service to consumers in the near future.

The firm is also gearing up to launch the service in the UK tomorrow, after having undertaken a beta trial with 4,000 users earlier this year.

The service processes MasterCard and American Express credit and debit card payments via hardware that can be plugged into smartphones. iZettle’s customers pay 2.75 per cent commission to the firm for any payment they process via the devices.

In July this year, the Swedish firm was forced to stop processing Visa card transactions in three European markets; Denmark, Finland and Norway, after Visa Europe said that the iZettle mobile payment service did not meet its policy requirements in these markets. Visa Inc is an investor in Square, which provides a similar solution in the US.

iZettle has itself benefitted from invesment from a number of financial firms, including MasterCard and American Express.