E-commerce company Merchant Focus Processing and Inner Fence have acquired AppNinjas, creator of Swipe Credit Card Terminal for iPhone (formerly iSwipe). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Inner Fence, which is actually a competitor of AppNinjas, develops a credit card processor for the iPhone and Mac computer. Both Inner Fence and AppNinjas will be rolling out integrated retail hardware to allow for retail-based swiped transactions for processing on both iPhone and iPod touch. The plan is to offer the hardware free of charge to new merchants that enroll with either Inner Fence or AppNinjas.
Of course, AppNinjas and Inner Fence will face competition from Jack Dorsey’s Square, which just debuted in the app store and has been receiving rave reviews. Square works by way of a tiny card reader that plugs into the headphone jack on the device. It takes finger signatures on the touchscreen, generates email or SMS receipts, calculates sales tax, and comes with an online accounting dashboard to keep track of sales.
Unlike Square, however, AppNinjas’ app does not come with a actual swiping device. You input a credit card’s information into the app to process the transaction.