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Square could be trying to buy Tidal from Jay-Z
The outlet is reporting that Square, the payments company run by Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, has discussed a potential acquisition with Jay-Z, the rapper and entrepreneur who bought Tidal in early 2015. Bloomberg cites an unnamed source and has emphasized that a deal isn’t guaranteed. Tidal is a direct competitor to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and Amazon Music Unlimited.
Square's Jack Dorsey calls VeriFone's vulnerability claims 'not fair or accurate'
We had a feeling that Square wouldn't let VeriFone call it out without issuing some sort of statement, and CEO Jack Dorsey has responded to the claims of a gaping security hole in the form of an open letter on the company's website. Dorsey calls its competitor's accusations "not fair or accurate" and says that many of the necessary security measures are already built-in to your credit card itself. He also points out that this sort of credit card number thievery is possible every time you hand your plastic over to a waiter or salesperson, and that its partner bank, JPMorgan Chase, stands behinds all aspects of the service. To us, it seems like Verifone is more than a little scared at the prospect of Square undercutting its fees and potentially upending the POS business -- but we're just theorizing. One thing is for sure though, we'll be hearing a lot more about this as the mobile payment war heats up in the future.
Accept credit card payments on your iPhone? Then there were two
While Square, the new venture from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey that adds a credit card swipe reader to the headphone port of an unsuspecting iPhone or other smartphones, was busy demoing at Le Web, one of the heavyweights of the payment processing market was busy prepping an announcement of its own. Earlier this week, VeriFone announced PAYware Mobile, a combination iPhone/iPod touch app and swipe card reader that will enable merchants to accept and process credit cards on the move. The widget is scheduled to ship in January and will be free with a 2-year contract with VeriFone (no word on the pricing plans yet the Los Angeles Times notes that users will pay an activation fee of $49, a monthly fee of $15 and a per-transaction charge of 17 cents). The reader is supposed to encrypt credit card data in hardware so that the iPhone never sees the raw card number, and the app will capture signatures using a stylus (at least that's how it's illustrated now). Check out the video above for a brief demo. It should be very interesting to see how these two hybrid solutions make their moves into the payment ecosystem. Square seems to be aiming at more ad-hoc usage (artists, coffeehouses, etc.) for people who don't have merchant accounts, but VeriFone is all about big retail. Room for everyone! TechCrunch happened to catch a reaction interview with Dorsey today, it's worth a look. [via Engadget]
