Silicon Valley payments company Square has inked a deal with Apple, allowing its credit card reader to accept Apple’s mobile payments technology.
At Apple’s developer conference in San Francisco today, the company announced it is working with Square to develop a hardware reader that lets consumers use Apple Pay in stores with a Square register point-of-sale system. Square is offering the first, new 250,000 Apple Pay readers to its customers for free.
Apple Pay allows shoppers with iOS devices to use their phone to pay for goods and services in the U.S. And U.K. (Starting next month) at point-of-sale locations equipped with near field communication technology, known as NFC.
As Apple pay head Jennifer Bailey explained, the Square integration will allow for millions of small businesses to accept Apple Pay. The new reader will also be integrated for chip-enabled cards.
Square, co-founded by Jack Dorsey, launched in 2009 with a sleek, white credit card reader that plugs into mobile phones, allowing anyone to accept credit card payments. The company has attracted nearly $600 million in venture capital and has grown to process as much as $100 million dollars in transactions for merchants, daily.
In the past year, Square has focused its efforts on providing financial and payments services to small and medium-sized businesses, including cash advances, peer-to-peer payments, disputed purchase protection, analytics, and instant deposits for merchants using its Register app.