Banco Santander, the largest bank in the Euro area, has invested more than 5 million euros ($6.6M) in Swedish mPOS solution iZettle. iZettle is a Square-like mPOS solution for Europe, competing for dominance within the region with SumUp, payleven, and PayPal. According to Ramón Tellaeche, an executive at Banco Santender:
“Millions of small business owners and professionals in the markets where we operate need an alternative to conventional credit card terminals, and simple software to manage and analyze their transactions. We are strongly committed to innovation that satisfies emerging needs of our customers, we believe iZettle’s innovative mobile technologies will be crucial to those merchants’ near and long term success.”
The startup’s free app is currently available for use in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, with expansion into more countries coming soon. However, the physical card readers (one that supports chip-and-PIN and one that only supports chip-and-signature) must be purchased, and are available on the iZettle website. Prices for the readers vary by region.
While the market for smartphone-based mPOS solution in the U.S. appears to be near saturation, merchants in other areas of the world are still looking for innovative and inexpensive methods to accept payments. This leaves significant potential growth for iZettle and its competitors.
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