SQUARE DROPS WEEKLY LIMITS, HAS SIGNED UP 800,000 CLIENTS

Until now, when a merchant using Square racked up over $1,000 in payments in the course of a week, everything above that limit was held for a period of time, ranging from just a few hours up to a whole month. As of today, roughly a year and a half after the company's founding, that restriction has been lifted. Now all payments will be processed immediately and merchants will have access to the funds the next day. Square also announced that, in the year or so since it started offering its wares to the public, it has signed up 800,000 merchants who have processed over $2 billion in transactions. After ditching the $0.15 per-transaction charge and with the $1,000 per-week restriction limit lifted, we're sure those numbers will only increase in the year ahead.

VERIZON INTRODUCES GOPAYMENT CREDIT CARD READER FOR TABLETS AND PHONES

In partnership with Intuit, Verizon Wireless introduced a mobile payment solution for small and medium businesses called GoPayment. The service will provide customers with a small credit card reader and a mobile application that allows businesses to charge credit cards using a smartphone or tablet. Here’s how it works: a business simply needs to plug the card reader into the 3.5mm audio jack of a tablet or smartphone. Cards can then be swiped and payments are processed immediately. Verizon Wireless says the credit card reader and application are supported on Android, iOS and BlackBerry. The GoPayment credit card reader is free with a GoPayment account and after a $29.97 mail-in rebate. Intuit takes a 2.7% cut of swiped transactions on free GoPayment accounts but customers who sign up for a $12.95 monthly option can pay a lower 1.7% per-transaction rate.

APPLE STORES STOCK SQUARE CREDIT CARD READER

Jack Dorsey's über-popular credit card readers got a big thumbs-up from Cupertino this week. Square's devices are hitting Apple's 235 US retail locations and Apple.com for $9.95 a pop(with a $10 redemption code making it free), plus the 2.75 percent that the startup takes off the backend each time you use the reader -- or you can always just sign up for a free one over on Square's site. The iPhone / iPad / iPod touch plug-in accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and yes, even American Express. The CEO of VeriFone will no doubt have plenty to say about the matter.

SQUARE AND VERIFONE TAKE SWIPES AT EACH OTHER

Earlier this week VeriFone CEO, Douglas G. Bergeron, wrote an open letter and created a YouTube video declaring that consumers were in “dire risk” because of competitor Square’s card reader. Although the accused company did not respond to requests for comment yesterday, Square’s CEO has published a letter of his own, downplaying VeriFone’s concerns, while taking the proverbial high-road.

“Any technology—an encrypted card reader, phone camera, or plain old pen and paper—can be used to ‘skim’ or copy numbers from a credit card,” writes Jack Dorsey, Square’s CEO. “The waiter you hand your credit card to at a restaurant, for example, could easily steal your card details if he wanted to—no technology required.”

The letter goes on to reassure Square users that the company is “constantly improving the payment experience to enhance security” and that it’s partner bank, JPMorgan Chase, “stands behind every aspect” of the company’s service.

SONY PLAYSTATION 3 TRANSMITS CREDIT CARD INFORMATION IN THE CLEAR

Sony has just officially announced that anyone who hacks their PlayStation 3 will find themselves (and not merely the hacked PS3) banned for life from the PlayStation Network. How does Sony know that you’ve hacked your console, though? After all, a PS3 hacked with the released master key should be virtually indistinguishable from a non-hacked machine, at least from a systems perspective.

The answer, at least according to one hacker, is that Sony collects a lot of data about users when they log into the PlayStation Network. Even worse than the volume of data collected — which is all automatically transferred to Sony when your PS3 connects to your WiFi network — is the way it is transmitted: in plain-text, with absolutely zero encryption.

“Sony is the biggest spy ever… they collect so much data. All connected devices return values sent to Sony’s servers,” the hacker said. According to him, Sony knows literally everything about your PlayStation 3, including which controllers you’re using, what USB devices are plugged in, what television is hooked up to it, everything.

Most alarming? This is the way Sony transmits your credit card information for every purchase:

creditCard.paymentMethodId=VISA&creditCard.holderName=Max&creditCard.cardNumber=45581234567812345678&creditCard.expireYear=2012&creditCard.expireMonth=2&creditCard.securityCode=214&creditCard.address.address1=example street%2024%20&creditCard.address.city=city1%20&creditCard.address.province=abc%20&creditCard.

That’s not unencrypted. That’s literally how the PS3 transmits your credit card information to its servers. That means that if you’re on an uncompromised network, literally anyone can pluck your credit card information from the air and use it for whatever he wants.

The hacker also states that the reason Sony is going on the offense when it comes to the PlayStation Network is because the release of the PS3 master key now makes it possible for anyone with a hacked PS3 to download as much content from the PSN Store as they want, all for free.

Perhaps this explains why Sony has been going to such lengths to sue, silence or hide all details of the PS3 jailbreak: they know their system is a security liability and now that it’s been blown wide open, they fear massive fraud and class-action lawsuits from the defrauded.

RUMOR: NFC COMING TO NEXT GEN iPHONE AND iPAD

Bloomberg is reporting Apple will be installing near field communication (NFC) chips in the next versions of the iPhone and iPad. This could potentially be huge and finally bring NFC payment systems, without need for a extra accessories (Square) or use of barcodes (Starbucks), to the masses.

Just by waving their NFC enabled device in front of a receiver, users would be able to pay for purchases, much like a credit card. Google is also working on NFC systems for its popular Android devices.

NFC payment systems have been around for some time, at least in theory, but has suffered from a catch-22. Processors, like Visa and Mastercard, refused to implement the backend infrastructure necessary until there was enough demand from consumers. On the opposite side, consumers won't use the systems until they are easily accessible.

If Apple, and Google to an extent, succeeds this will put millions of NFC devices in people's hands, hopefully creating a tipping point for processors to institute the backend processing.

REDEMPTION CREDIT CARD ALLOWS YOU TO CHOOSE CREDIT OR REWARDS

The Redemption credit card allows the user to use either credit or rewards points to pay for their purchase.  The card was developed by Dynamics and is currently being tested by Citi.  When the user goes to pay for a purchase, they press the side of the card they wish to use, Credit or Rewards, and an LED lights up to indicate the choice.  The purchase is then processed using the selection.  No word on if purchases can be split between the two.  There are also questions about how long the LED and battery will last and how durable the touch sensors for the selections are. [Engadget]

ROAMPAY FOR CREDIT CARD PROCESSING LAUNCHED

Over the past few months it seems like there is a new credit card processing system being launched for the iPhone.  Now, QuickPay Merchant Services is launching a device agnostic service called RoamPay.  With the hardware card swiper and software designed for iOS, Blackberry and Android, you can now accept Mastercard, Visa, Discover and American Express cards, if you have a QuickPay account. [Engadget]

IPHONE BECAMES CREDIT CARD PROCESSOR THANKS TO MOPHIE AND INTUIT

Credit card processing is becoming the hot app for the iPhone.  Thanks to Mophie and Intuit there is now a competitor to Square.  Using the Mophie created app and reader device you can except credit card payments for an initial set-up fee of $179 and $0.30-$0.34 per transaction through the Intuit's GoPayment system.  This transaction fee is double that of Square who only charges $0.15 per transaction.

However, the Mophie/Intuit system will charge a smaller total overall payment fee of 1.7% - 3.7% depending on the type of card being used.  Square is charging 2.75%-3.5% comparatively.

Currently, this only works on the iPhone 3G/GS, but an iPhone 4 app is in the works.