Japan has long had square watermelons, and now it has Square for mobile payments too. This marks the first overseas expansion for Square, the funky iPhone add-on gadget that lets anyone swipe credit card payments.
Square’s Japan launch comes in partnership with Sumitomo Mitsui Card Corporation (SMCC) and involves both the iPhone gadget and the iPad-oriented Square Register. The company will charge a “low” transaction rate of 3.25 percent per swipe. That’s one hell of a cut for retailers to swallow, though it is lower than some of Square’s rivals. Funds from swiped payments on Square are “automatically deposited in the merchant’s bank account the next business day for participating banks and within one week for other banks”, says today’s announcement.
Square CEO and founder Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-creator, hailed today’s launch in “a country with a rich history of design, innovation and tradition” that he feels matches with Square’s ethos.
Almost exactly a year ago, PayPal and Japan’s Softbank launched a joint venture for online payments that also brought PayPal’s triangular card-swipe gadget to the nation. In Japan’s very mature market, they’re certainly not the first, and things like Docomo Mobile Payment have been working on Japan’s complex feature phones for some time.
Aside from the US, Square has also launched over the border in Canada.
(Source: TechCrunch)
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