iZettle, the Swedish mobile payments startup that basically competes with Square, has gone live on the App store in the Nordic markets today (Denmark, Norway and Finland). It’s making 5,000 card reader devices available in each country. They’ve also appointed a UK managing director, Stewart Roberts. Stewart was former Director of Global Innovation at Barclaycard. A launch in the UK is therefore all but confirmed.

Unlike square, iZettle’s card reader is a “chip and signature” device, which makes it more secure than Square. However it doesn’t have quite the same advantages, as its reader uses Apple’s proprietary connector so it has to pay Apple for the license on that.

Chip-based payments are the standard in Europe which means it is much better positioned than Square on this market.

iZettle charges sellers 2.75% on a sale plus €0.16. Funds get transferred to bank accounts on the next business day.

The company, appearing at Mobile World Congress, says it has 25,000 users and is most popular in Sweden so far.

Crunchbase

• IZETTLE
• SQUARE

Company: iZettle

Website: izettle.com

Launch Date: April 2010

Funding: €11.2M

iZettle creates services for person-to-person and business-to-consumer commerce. The first service includes a free iPhone app and a mini chip card reader that lets anyone take card payments anytime, anywhere.

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Company: Square

Website: squareup.com

Launch Date: February 2009

Funding: $141M

Square is a revolutionary service that enables anyone to accept credit cards anywhere. Square offers an easy to use, free credit card reader that plugs into a phone or iPad. It’s simple to sign up. There are no extra equipment, complicated contracts, monthly fees or merchant account required. Co-founded by Jim McKelvey and Jack Dorsey in 2009, the company is headquartered in San Francisco with additional offices in Saint Louis and New York City.

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